New Books on Japan: "The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region"

Monday, May 4, 2026 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET

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The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (University of California Press, 2025)

Presenter: Hannah Shepherd, Assistant Professor, Yale University

Discussant: Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Professor Emerita of Japanese History, Australian National University

Moderator: Joseph Seeley, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Hannah Shepherd, who will be speaking about her new book The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (University of California Press, 2025). This book examines the shared histories of Pusan and Fukuoka over the eight decades from Japan's forced opening of Korea's ports in 1876 to the end of the Korean War in 1953. One city was Korean, the other Japanese; one was a burgeoning colonial port, the other a provincial city buoyed by imperial expansion. Wars, colonization, and capitalist industrialization forged intimate connections between the two, knitting together an imperial region that transcended its maritime boundaries. Drawing on both Japanese and Korean archives, and emphasizing the concept of imperial urbanization, Shepherd challenges traditional views of empire and urban growth and shows how local networks, migration, and capital flows shaped the region's exploitative and uneven geographies. The waters between Fukuoka and Pusan narrowed through intensified interactions that continued even after the end of empire, creating enduring legacies for the postwar and postcolonial eras. Tessa Morris-Suzuki (ANU) will serve as interlocutor.