The rise and fall of the Japanese empire constitutes one of the most dramatic episodes of modern history. Within the short span of fifty years Japan grew out of political backwardness into a position of tremendous power. Japan's rise to power challenged Europe's hegemony over Asia, but, paradoxically, it was Japan's fall that caused the irreparable ruin of the colonial system over Eastern lands. Japan went to war against the West under the battlecry of Asia's liberation from European colonialism. In reality, for forty years, beginning with her first war against China, she had striven to...