Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 initiated a new phase of brutal occupation and warfare in Asia and the Pacific. It forwarded the project of remaking the Japanese state along technocratic and fascistic lines and creating a self-sufficient Asian bloc centered on Japan and its puppet state of Manchukuo. In Planning for Empire, Janis Mimura traces the origins and evolution of this new order and the ideas and policies of its chief architects, the reform bureaucrats. The reform bureaucrats pursued a radical, authoritarian vision of modern Japan in which public and private spheres were fused, ownership and control of capital were separated, and society was ruled by technocrats.

Mimura shifts our attention away from reactionary young officers to state planners—reform bureaucrats, total war officers, new zaibatsu leaders, economists, political scientists, engineers, and labor party leaders. She shows how empire building and war mobilization raised the stature and influence of these middle-class professionals by calling forth new government planning agencies, research bureaus, and think tanks to draft Five Year industrial plans, rationalize industry, mobilize the masses, streamline the bureaucracy, and manage big business. Deftly examining the political battles and compromises of Japanese technocrats in their bid for political power and Asian hegemony, Planning for Empire offers a new perspective on Japanese fascism by revealing its modern roots in the close interaction of technology and right-wing ideology.

Reviews "Janis Mimura has written a substantial and path-breaking piece of scholarship. She has gone into new territory both in research goals and source materials, and come up with fascinating ideas about, and a cogent analysis of, Japan's wartime fascist industrial planners. Mimura demonstrates that wartime Japan was not simply dominated by the military. Civilians and in particular modern bureaucrats with a new set of ideas rehearsed in Manchuria in the 1930s played a major role in the road to war, and they must share blame with the army and navy for the military and economic disaster."—Richard Smethurst, UCIS Research Professor, University of Pittsburgh "Planning for Empire offers a powerful new understanding of the core ideas and policies of the wartime Japanese state. Janis Mimura argues that a wartime ideology of technocracy, of a fascist character, drew support from a wide range of elite actors and propelled Japan to war. She offers a finely drawn portrait of the ideas and the political strivings of reform bureaucrats who carried the torch of technocracy first in Manchuria and then back in Tokyo, making clear both the extent and the limits of their achievements. This book should draw wide attention, spark some controversy, and shift the terms of debate of a critical episode in the twentieth-century history of Japan and the world."—Andrew Gordon, Harvard University, author of A Modern History of Japan