<p>In the 1930s and '40s, Japanese political architects of the<br>Manchukuo project in occupied northeast China realized the importance<br>of using various cultural media to promote a modernization program in<br>the region, as well as its expansion into other parts of Asia.<br>Ironically, the writers and artists chosen to spread this imperialist<br>message had left-wing political roots in Japan, where their work<br>strongly favoured modernist, even avant-garde, styles of<br>expression.</p><br><br><p>In <i>Glorify the Empire,</i> Annika A. Culver explores how these<br>once anti-imperialist intellectuals produced modernist works<br>celebrating the modernity of a fascist state and reflecting a<br>complicated picture of complicity with, and ambivalence towards,<br>Japan's utopian project. During the war, literary and artistic<br>representations of Manchuria accelerated, and the Japanese-led culture<br>in Manchukuo served as a template for occupied areas in Southeast Asia.<br>A groundbreaking work, <i>Glorify the Empire</i> magnifies the<br>intersection between politics and art in a rarely examined period in<br>Japanese history.</p><p><p><b>Annika A. Culver</b> is an assistant professor of East<br>Asian history at Florida State University. She also serves as a scholar<br>in the US-Japan Network for the Future.</p>