[A monumental achievement in the study of the history of the Sino-Japanese War!] A classic work of historical research based on thorough empiricism, “The History of the Sino-Japanese War” by Ikuhiko Hata, has been reprinted. It is scheduled for publication on November 25th.
Kawade Shobo Shinsha Press release: October 24, 2025 To Members of the Press [A monumental work in the study of the history of the
Sino-Japanese War!] “The History of the Sino-Japanese War” by Ikuhiko Hata, a classic work of historical research based on thorough positivism, has been reprinted. It is scheduled for publication on November 25th. A must-read for all aspiring historical researchers. This release includes a special “Author’s Preface” by Ikuhiko Hata!
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Sino-Japanese War,” analyzes the politics, diplomacy, military affairs, and economics of the Second Sino-Japanese War from various angles. This book is not only the result of Hata’s superhuman scholarship, but also a monumental work that provides a logical foundation for the practice of thorough positivism in historical research, particularly in the study of the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War. (The book also includes a 100-page “Appendix” at the end, which gives a glimpse into how Hata relied on a vast amount of historical material to compile this book.) “The History of the Second Sino-Japanese War” is a classic work that academically organizes the development of Japan’s continental policy, centered on the Second Sino-Japanese War, based on valuable testimonies from those involved and materials from the former military and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Please take this opportunity to check it out. ＊ This newly published edition features a new preface, “The Logic of Researching the History of the Sino-Japanese War,” by Kazunari Hironaka, an associate professor in the Faculty of Letters at Aichi Gakuin University and a leading researcher known for works such as “The Late Second Sino-Japanese War” (Kadokawa Shinsho). During his graduate school days, when he aspired to study the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Hironaka first obtained this book, “The History of the Second Sino-Japanese War,” from among the many research books he had available. In this preface, Hironaka writes, “This book’s thorough empirical research, based on primary sources, remains an excellent example not only for those like me who already work in history, but also for young people aspiring to pursue a career in historical research.” This clearly demonstrates the book’s profound significance. In this release, we are featuring the “Author’s Preface,” which appears at the beginning of this book and was written by Hata in 1961 (see below). It describes how Hata decided to study the history of the Sino-Japanese War, as well as his research environment at the time, his material collection, and his research. We hope that this will inspire you to read this book while learning about Hata’s passion for his research. ■Table of contents (Chapter and section numbers are written in Chinese numerals in this book, but will be written in Arabic numerals below.) Preface The “Logic” of Research into the History of the Sino-Japanese War (Hironaka Kazunari) / On the Reprint (Hata Ikuhiko) / Author’s Preface (Hata Ikuhiko) Chapter 1: The Umezu-He Yingqin Agreement 1. Preface 2. History of the Umezu-He Yingqin Agreement Negotiations 3. The Doihara-Hata Tokusumi Agreement 4. The International Aspects of the Agreement Chapter 2: The North China Division The failure of the expansionist efforts 1. Introduction 2. Hirota’s Three Principles 3. The North China Autonomy Movement 4. Currency Reform 5. The Final Sino-Japanese Diplomatic Negotiations 6. The Suiyuan Incident 7. The Progress of the Unification of Mainland China 8. Diplomacy Towards China Just Before the Second Sino-Japanese War Chapter 3: The Second Sino-Japanese War – Concerning Peace Efforts and Peace Terms – Appendix: Other Peace Efforts Chapter 4: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident – From the Night of July 7th to the Night of the 8th – Chapter 5: Expansionists and Anti-Expansionists in the Second Sino-Japanese War 1. 2. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident 3. The situation on July 8th 4. The situation on July 9th 5. The situation on July 10th 6. The situation on July 11th 7. The situation from July 13th to 18th (the period when the two armies faced each other) 8. The situation from July 19th to 29th (the period when the situation worsened) 9. The Second Shanghai Incident 10. Trends in public opinion and journalism 11. Comprehensive review Chapter 6. Trends in the international community regarding the Sino-Japanese War Chapter 7. An overview of military operations 1. The Battle of North China 2. The Shanghai and Nanking Campaigns 3. Xuzhou and Hankou Operations 4. Military Operations from 1939 to 1941 Chapter 8. The Development of Japan’s Overseas Investment in the Prewar Period 1. Introduction 2. The Establishment of Japanese Imperialism 3. The Nishihara Loan 4. The Manchurian Incident 5. The Second Sino-Japanese War 6. The End of the War—Settling the Overseas Investment Balance— Afterword Appendix Transcriptions of Related Materials / Chronology / List of Key Army and Navy Officials / Brief Biographies of Key Diplomats and Army and Navy Personnel / References / Index ■Special publication: “Author’s Preface” by Mr. Ikuhiko Hata (Written in June 1961/partially omitted) The Sino-Japanese War was the inevitable consequence of the
continental policy that Japan had consistently pursued since the early Meiji period. From the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War to the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937, the mainstream of Japan’s foreign policy for half a century saw many ups and downs, fraught with disagreements over how to achieve its goals and the timing of policy implementation—and there were occasional attempts to stem or reverse this trend—but the basic direction of political, economic, and military expansion into mainland China remained unchanged. And it ultimately developed into the larger-scale Pacific War that determined Japan’s fate, further expanding the devastation inflicted on the Chinese people and ending only with the complete destruction of the Japanese Empire itself. Looking back on what followed, am I the only one who sees a shadow of fate colored by cruelty and harshness in the image of the vast whirlpool of history being drawn centripetally toward the abyss of predicted destruction? Furthermore, 15 years after the end of the war, diplomatic relations between Japan and China have not been restored. Against the backdrop of the complex political situation of “two Chinas,” we are still in danger of being drawn into a new hostile relationship. If Stefan Zweig’s words, “History does not inform its contemporaries of the great movements that will determine their epoch, in their very inception,” are correct, then perhaps we, as contemporaries and as parties involved, are not qualified to grasp the historical depth and breadth of the Sino-Japanese War. Naturally, this is a task that should be accomplished by future historians once the basic Chinese documents are made public. However, the history of the Sino-Japanese War was hidden from the public’s eyes even at the time on the Japanese side, with a near-total blockade of documents. Then, with the dissolution of the Japanese Empire at the end of the war, many of these valuable documents and records were lost. Compounded by the political constraints of the continued occupation regime, the area has remained virtually blank. I decided to study Japan’s mainland policy, focusing on the Sino-Japanese War, because, even though these constraints had already been lifted, the minimum level of historical documentation that the parties involved should have preserved had not yet been restored. With this motivation, I embarked on my research in 1952, when I was a second-year student at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. I first began the task of visiting and interviewing surviving people involved, with a particular focus on the former military and naval leaders. I began with this unusual approach because, at the time, there was a severe lack of readily available primary sources. Many of the existing memoirs and overviews lacked historical credibility. Furthermore, there was a trend in postwar historiography that could be described as an emphasis on infrastructure, which tended to neglect empirical research in the superstructure of political, diplomatic, and military history. Above all, there was virtually no accumulated
research—indeed, it was consciously rejected—on the Japanese military, which played a key role in policymaking during the Showa era. Fortunately, most people were kind enough to answer my questions, and some even lent me materials they had on hand (I visited about 300 people in total). Meanwhile, I frequented the Documents Arrangement Division of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Demobilization Bureau (now the Defense Agency’s War History Office), where I was given special permission to research former military documents. During this time, I began to understand, albeit vaguely, the inner workings of the former Japanese military, and discovered that many more documents than I had expected remained unsorted. Based on the materials I collected, I compiled an outline of diplomatic and military history, centered on the military, from the early Showa period to the early Sino-Japanese War, as well as a theme that could be called the history of the military-fascist movement. I presented some of these in the categories and order described in the “Afterword.” In this process, with the assistance of Ken Kurihara and Katsumi Usui (Diplomatic Documents Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), we were able to add diplomatic documents held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and, thanks to the generosity of Sadatoshi Tomioka, materials from the former Naval General Staff held by the Materials Research Association, which was an unexpected pleasure. After that, I stepped away from research for a while due to personal reasons, but recently, at the recommendation of Professor Seizaburo Shinobu, I have added unpublished material (Chapters 6 and 7 of this book) to the papers I have published so far, and have compiled them into a single volume with additions and corrections throughout. As mentioned above, it is unfortunate that the section from September 1937 onwards is so extensive due to the impossibility of comparing records with those in China and the lack of primary sources such as telegrams and official diaries. However, I have endeavoured to gather all the materials currently available, and I hope that this will serve as a cornerstone for research into the Sino-Japanese War, which is expected to see further development in the future. June 1961 Ikuhiko Hata ■From the main text
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/12754/1073/12754-1073-c01c65fd6384b45db6908d45c4658049-1215×862.png From “Chapter 1: The Umezu-He Yingqin Agreement” (pp. 4-5). This book begins with the “Manchurian Incident.” The book includes diagrams from time to time.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/12754/1073/12754-1073-2bc3f5978c798c52ab61eab074cc3ef5-1214×863.png From “Chapter 4: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident” (pp. 172-173). In addition to the extensive appendix at the end of this book, each section contains detailed “notes.” The sections listed contain over four pages of notes.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/12754/1073/12754-1073-8d748f7ca3e399540f5b18b79ecf3ad4-1216×862.png From “Chapter 5: Expansionists and Anti-Expansionists in the Sino-Japanese War” (pp. 200-201). The organizational chart of the Army’s central leadership as of July 7, 1937, is included within the text.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/12754/1073/12754-1073-0286a99aeba57daf5283aabf9c6f1ed5-1215×862.png From “Chapter 8: The Development of Japan’s Overseas Investment in the Prewar Period” (pp. 316-317). This article contains information about Japan’s overseas investment at the time. ■Author introduction Ikuhiko Hata (Hata Ikuhiko) Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1932 (Showa 7). Graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo in 1956. Studied abroad at Harvard University and Columbia University, served as Director of the Financial History Office of the Ministry of Finance, Visiting Professor at Princeton University, and Professor at Takushoku University and Chiba University. He retired as Professor at Nihon University’s Faculty of Law in 2002. He holds a Doctor of Law. Major works include “History of the Military Fascist Movement” (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, reprinted new edition 2012), “Five Decisions of Emperor Showa” (Bunshun Bunko, 1994), “The Nanjing Massacre: The Structure of ‘Massacre'” (Chuko Shinsho, expanded edition 2007), “A Study of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident” (University of Tokyo Press, 1996), “Japanese Prisoners of War” Volumes 1 and 2 (Hara Shobo, 1998), “Comprehensive Encyclopedia of the Japanese Army and Navy” (University of Tokyo Press, second edition 2005), “Comfort Women and Sex on the Battlefield” (Shincho Sensho, 1999), and “The Deities of Yasukuni Shrine” (Shincho Sensho, 2010) His works include “Unraveling 12 Mysteries of Modern Japanese History” (PHP Institute, 2024), and “Unraveling 12 Mysteries of Modern Japanese History” (PHP Institute, 2024). He won the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1993 for “Chasing the Mysteries of Showa History” (Bunshun Bunko, 1999). ■ Bibliographic information Book title: History of the Sino-Japanese War (new edition) Author: Ikuhiko Hata Specifications: A5 size / hardcover / 406 pages First edition release date: November 25, 2025 Price including tax: ¥7,920 (¥7,200 excluding tax) ISBN: 978-4-309-22980-5 Binding: Takeshi Kobayashi (SURFACE) https://www.kawade.co.jp/np/isbn/9784309229805/ Publisher: Kawade Shobo Shinsha
