Tessa Morris-Suzuki is one of the most prolific scholars in Japanese history. She has been expanding her research to include related topics, such as Japan's relations with Korea and China and Korean returnees to North Korea. On the Frontiers of History shows her exploration of the issue of frontiers and borderlands, areas that cannot easily fit into the conventional categories established by national boundaries. It indicates her willingness to explore new intellectual horizons in examining theories, old and new—a willingness that is applicable not only to Japanese and East Asian history, but to history and social science in general.
This book is an accumulation of Morris-Suzuki's writings on related topics over the past twenty years, combining revisions to her previously published papers with new writings. Despite having been written in different periods and for various audiences, the writings contained in this book are well organized and form a coherent monograph. The contents can be broadly divided into three focal areas: new theories and critiques of existing theories, case studies, and reflections on past research along with prospects for future research.
The book has eight chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 starts with the origin and evolution of area studies in Europe and North America. Chapter 2 is about changing perceptions of space and time and how the diverse practice of cartography has led to the demarcation of national boundaries and civilizations, as well as how that process has intertwined with the development of racism, nationalism, and ethnocentrism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Chapters 3–7 discuss the history of the areas surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk. In particular, chapter 7 elaborates on the historical vicissitudes of a small village—Karafuto, standing between Japan and Russia—that has witnessed many tragedies and complexities thanks to its geopolitical location and the changing power relations of two major imperial contenders during the twentieth century. In addition to critiquing the neglect of this area by mainstream history, Morris-Suzuki argues for incorporating this area into the narrative of history and advocates for a new history through the angle and perspective of frontiers and borderlands.
Chapter 8 returns to her major field, Japanese history. In this chapter, she discusses how Japanese studies has evolved in prewar and postwar intellectual trajectories. Morris-Suzuki also incorporates her personal travel experience, as well as her observations of and conversations with people who, voluntarily or involuntarily, migrated to the other side of a national boundary, including older generations and their descendants who finally had the chance to visit the land they were long forbidden to visit because of tensions and disputes between Japan and the Soviet Union since the end of World War II.
This is a book that contains profound reflections on the evolution of history in the modern period. It critiques the problems and limits of the practice of area studies, with its particular connection to Cold War ideology. Area studies stems from Cold War rhetoric and necessity. However, conventional area studies did not halt or decline with the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. Scholars have indeed been critical of area studies, which has confined history within arbitrary national boundaries and has been burdened with nationalism. However, an efficient and constructive alternative has yet to emerge.
In this book, Morris-Suzuki attempts to shed light on prospects for a new history, arguing that the boundary lines demarcated in recent centuries are contingent and shifting, and that history can be different and more holistic if seen from areas that have experienced ever-changing political and conceptual frontiers. In this regard, a new “imbricated history,” as observed in the areas around the Okhotsk Sea, can contribute to broader thinking about spatial and temporal boundaries, hence affirming that our world is complex and consists of interwoven parts (p. 24). Morris-Suzuki skillfully showcases the need for and ways to present small histories, and by doing so, she convinces readers of the merits of these small histories: “History is not a single road from past to future, but a multitude of diverging and intertwining paths” (p. 236). The grand narrative of Big History is still valid and necessary. Nonetheless, there should be room for—and, one might argue, there is a necessity for—bottom-up, small histories.
This book is one of the very rare monographs to bring theoretical analysis, case studies, and reflection and retrospection together in Asian studies. It is a must-read not only for Asian studies specialists and students, but also for historians and social scientists in general. It lays a foundation for the effort to pay immediate attentison to small histories and invite continuing scholarship of complicating history through the perspective of frontiers and borderlands. It shows promising possibilities for overcoming the limits of national history and the obsession with nationalism that is still prevalent in a number of fields.
