British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914-1941 - Paperback

by A. Best (Author)

This is the first full-length study of the role played by British Intelligence in influencing policy towards Japan from the decline of the Alliance to the outbreak of the Pacific War. Using many previously classified records it describes how the image of Japan generated by Intelligence during this period led Britain to underestimate Japanese military capabilities in 1941. The book shows how this image was derived from a lack of adequate intelligence resources and racially driven assumptions about Japanese national characteristics.

Author Biography

ANTONY BEST is Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936-41 and a number of scholarly articles on Anglo-Japanese relations in the 1930s.