The Two Pacific Wars

This dissertation examines the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan's ambitious attempt to create a new order in East Asia. Most studies on Japan's new order focus on either the imperial center (Japan) or the periphery (individual East or Southeast Asian nations). This dissertation, however, brings together both. It discusses the Japanese effort to envision a postwar world, and at the same time shows how Japan's new order was mobilized and co-opted by nationalist leaders in the Philippines and Burma. By focusing on dynamic imperial networks rather than simple models of unidirectional diffusion, this dissertation seeks to paint a more nuanced picture of World War II in the Asia-Pacific.