Japanese History, Post-Japan

The three recent works on Japanese history discussed in this essay are con- nected only tenuously in terms of their subject matter: the construction of the category of "religion," Buddhism in colonial Korea, and the evolution of liberalism in prewar Japan, respectively. What unites these studies is, rather, their approach. Highlighting the vital links between their subjects and other areas of the world, these studies yield a composite portrait of Japan as viewed through the transnational lens that now characterizes historical studies more generally. It has been some two decades since the so-called transnational turn in historical studies. What exactly distinguishes the transnational from other supranational historiographical frameworks (such as global, world, compara- tive, or international) is still the subject of ongoing debate (Bayly, Eckert,