There is an inherent tension in any examination of Japan's military occupation of what is now Indonesia: how to incorporate the separate and sometimes conflicting occupation of western Indonesia, including Sumatra by Japan's Imperial Navy, and Japan's Imperial Army's occupation of central and eastern Indonesia including Java. And, just as importantly, how to reconcile Indonesia's pro-independence activists, such as Sukarno, who were mostly Javanese, but imagined and promoted an independent Indonesia which was sometimes against Javanese interests. In Japan's occupation of Java in the Second World War: A transnational history, Ethan Mark has positioned these challenges within a transnational framework which recognises Dutch colonialism, acknowledges the pro-independence leaders’ aim of an independent Indonesia, and emphasises the Japanese Imperial Army's propaganda machinery, which used its experience in China to hone a selective use of Orientalist ideas to promote pan-Asianism. Most importantly, as the title indicates, Mark focuses on the occupation of Java rather than Indonesia as a whole.

To examine these interlinked but disparate ideas, Mark uses a ‘narrative structure that weaves back and forth across Japan and Indonesia’ (p. 8) to focus on Java as a location of ‘transnational cultural experience’ (p. 7) where the ideals and attitudes held by Japanese and Javanese came up against each other. Transnational history on this scale is highly complex and while the shifts back and forth between Japan and Java demonstrate the links, they also make the book difficult to follow at times. Yet, in taking this approach, Mark makes the many contradictions, and their ramifications on the occupation of Java, clear. For instance, he refers to both the inclusion of Japanese Muslims in the Japanese occupation forces (p. 107) as well as the kenpeitai's arbitrary detention of anyone who was suspected of anything untoward, even if they were trusted by other parts of the administration. For example, the kenpeitai arrested local Chinese who they suspected of being sympathetic to the nationalist cause at some time, irrespective of their allegiances at the time of their arrest (p. 173). The first shows the occupation administration as diverse and flexible while the second shows it as harsh and uncompromising.

In support of his approach, Mark focuses on the bunkajin (men of culture) who were attached to the military and whose work before and during the occupation were instrumental in how the occupation administration engaged with the Javanese people. The discussion of the attitudes and works of bunkajin such as Abe Tomoji, Shimizu Hitoshi and Tomizawa Uio makes fascinating reading. For instance, despite his pro-Japan ideals and works, Shimizu, who had experience in China and studied the Indonesian language on his journey to Java, was viewed with some suspicion by members of the Japanese administration because of his pragmatic and modern attitudes (pp. 60–61, 174). Mark also discusses the bunkajin's involvement in the publication of the Asia Raya newspaper and the establishment of the Three-A Movement (pp. 145–79), which was designed to encourage Indonesians’ co-operation with the occupation and Japan's war effort in general. Such discussions clearly show the mutual wariness that the military and bunkajin had of each other even though they were mostly able to work pragmatically together for the good of the Japanese Empire.

Another important contradiction that Mark raises is that between the Japanese who had pre-war experience in the Dutch East Indies and the inexperienced soldiers in the 16th Army contingent. The latter's lack of cultural sensitivity had a large impact on the locals’ attitudes towards the Japanese administration. For instance, the soldiers’ complete lack of awareness of Javanese reverence for the head meant that they had no understanding that hitting a person on the head was inappropriate and nor did they recognise that such acts had a negative impact on how they, and by extension the occupation administration, was perceived (pp. 107–8).

Whilst Mark's focus is primarily on the elites, there are some interesting insights into how the non-elite Javanese viewed the occupation forces. One such example is Yoshizumi's observation that the Javanese came to refer to the pre-war Japanese residents as ‘Mister Japan’ and the occupation forces as ‘Mister Nippon’ (pp. 216–17) to differentiate between the two groups’ attitudes and activities. There are also a number of references to the attitudes towards, and treatment of, the local Chinese population by the Javanese as well as the Japanese. Again the contradictions are noted: Toyoshima Ataru, for instance, supported ‘a more “moderate” policy’ towards Java's Chinese community ‘than elsewhere in Japan's occupied territories’, but also accepted that ‘a limited preemptive strike’ against the Chinese community was necessary to ensure that ‘enemy Chinese’ did not disturb the emperor's birthday celebrations (p. 173).

Overall however, to my mind, Mark has not sufficiently differentiated the occupation of Java from the occupation of Indonesia as a whole, or the Japanese Army's activities from those of the Japanese military as a whole. Nevertheless, Mark's use of a wide range of sources including newspaper articles, diaries and interviews in ‘Malay/Indonesian’, Japanese and English provide valuable transnational insights into the Japanese occupation of Java/Indonesia and open up a number of new avenues for further research. One of these is a focus on the personalities of the Japanese military leaders (e.g. Imamura Hitoshi and Harada Yoshikazu) and the effect that personalities had on the progression of the occupation.

Notwithstanding my criticisms, Ethan Mark has written a significant piece of scholarship which provides important insights into the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of Japan's occupation of Java/Indonesia and the diverse and changing attitudes of the independence activists to Japanese rule. The book will appeal most to researchers with an understanding of Indonesian independence movements, but those with an interest in Japan's occupation strategies will find some new and valuable insights.