Talk at the Library: How an Oceanic Current shaped Modern Japan
Book Talk on The Kuroshio Frontier with Author Jonas Rüegg
Japan is often viewed through a land-based lens. Yet as an archipelago in the northwestern Pacific, its history has long been shaped by the sea. In The Kuroshio Frontier: Empire and Environment in the Making of Japan’s Pacific, historian Jonas Rüegg shifts our perspective offshore and places the Kuroshio Current at the centre of Japan’s modern history.
The Kuroshio is a warm, powerful ocean current that flows northward along Japan’s southern and eastern coasts, linking Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the wider Pacific. For centuries, it has carried people, goods, ideas, and animals across vast distances. In this Talk at the Library, we will explore how this oceanic current created dynamic conditions for economic, intellectual, and geopolitical change over the past four centuries.
What happens when we take the ocean seriously as a historical force? And how does this change the way we think about Japan’s place in the world? This evening invites conversation around these questions, as well as broader reflections on oceans, connectivity, and environmental history.
Join us in this discussion with Jonas to follow the Kuroshio through early Pacific exploration, the “opening” of Japan by whalers and castaways, and later struggles over remote islands. Along the way, the talk brings into view lesser-known actors, encounters, and conflicts that played a key role in the making of modern Japan.
The Kuroshio Frontier: Empire and Environment in the Making of Japan’s Pacific is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This event is exclusively for members of Asia Society Switzerland. If you would like to attend, you can easily purchase a membership while registering for the event.
