Author:
Title: Manchoukuo: A Pictorial Record / le Mandchoukouo: Chronique Illustrèe
Description: Tokyo, Japan, Asahigraph, 1934. 1st edition. Hardcover. pp. 320. 4to. The endpapers depict maps of the region, and the book contains almost 300 pages of full-page photographs with bilingual captions, followed by 20 pages of English-language advertisements for Japanese products. The corners of our copy are bumped, and the cloth binding is lightly soiled. Rubber stamp to bottom right of front endpaper: 'Sales Agent / Kuwayama & Co. Inc. / 76 West 47th St. / New York, N.Y.' The contents are unmarked. An almost very good copy of a scarce piece of pictorial propaganda. The text is in English and French. 'Manchukuo', or Manchoukuo, was a puppet state in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia, which was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The area, collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese, was designated by China's erstwhile Qing Dynasty as the 'homeland' of the ruling family's ehtnic group, the Manchus, but the Manchus themselves never used 'Manchuria' as a place name to refer to the area. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukdan Incident and a pro-Japanese government was installed one year later. Manchukuo's government was abolished in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II [ack. Wikipedia]. The irony of the following statement in the book's Preface should be obvious: 'This volume of photographs [represents] the first attempt yet made in either Japan or abroad to portray the life of the Manchoukuo people in all its phases without the slightest tinge of political bias'.

Keywords: Japan; China; Manchuria; Propaganda;


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