In her book Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War (Columbia UP, 2025), historian Kristin Roebuck grapples with the question: Why did Japan embrace “mixed blood” as an authoritarian empire yet turn to xenophobic racial nationalism as a Cold War democracy? Through in-depth and rigorous historical archival research, Roebuck traces the fraught history of sex, reproduction, race and empire building in Japan from the 1930s to 1950s. Through her scholarship, she crucially demonstrates how discourses on sex, mixed-race children, and adoption revolved around control of women and their bodies to strengthen nationalism and imperialism. This monograph is an important read for listeners who are interested in the topics of race, gender and empire and scholars in Asian Studies, History, and Gender Studies.
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