New Books in East Asian Studies Kristin Roebuck, "Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Feb 10, 2026
Kristin Roebuck, historian and author of Japan Reborn, studies race, gender, reproduction and empire in modern Japan. She traces Japan’s shift from imperial acceptance of mixed-race bodies to Cold War racial nationalism. Topics include eugenics laws, postwar adoption and bureaucratic power, occupation politics, and how debates over mixed blood shaped nationalist projects.
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Mixed Blood: Inclusion Then Exclusion
- Kristin Roebuck found postwar Japan's hostility to mixed-race children surprising given imperial-era praise for 'mixed blood' as strength.
- She argues race functioned both to lump diverse peoples into empire and to later split and exclude after defeat.
Race Lumps And Splits
- Roebuck emphasizes race's dual role: it lumps groups together and splits others apart depending on political aims.
- She highlights contingency and rapid ideological reversals across short historical spans.
Read 'Minzoku' In Context
- Roebuck advises reading minzoku (民族) in context and often leaving it untranslated to preserve meaning.
- She urges historians to prioritize archival use over ready-made translations to avoid misreading concepts.
