[Map of the Current Situation in the Pacific].

1936 Li Changfu and Shi Zhonghua Map of Indonesia, Philippines, Indochina, Malaya, Burma, Thailand

Date d'édition : 1936

A propos de cet article

Good. Slight loss at intersection of fold lines. Additional slight loss towards center of lower quadrant of map. Slight discoloration in lower quarter of map. Size 30.75 x 42.25 Inches. An important c. 1936 Japanese map of Southeast Asia and the East Indies on the eve of World War II with a wealth of interesting manuscript annotations relating to subsequent war events. This rare map was edited by Li Changfu and Shi Zhonghua and published by the Shanghai World Geographic Society. Coverage includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Indochina, Malaya, Burma, Thailand, and southern China. The map includes three insets (of Java, the Malay Peninsula, and the Pacific Ocean, marking the colonial territories of various powers) and indicates major geographical features, road, rail, air, and sea routes, political boundaries, and major cities. Place names are written in Chinese and the Latin alphabet, and a marginal note points out that, in writing the Chinese place names of areas without a standard Chinese name, the editors followed the dialect pronunciation of overseas Chinese in those areas. Verso Content The verso map by the same publisher is centered on the Pacific Ocean and focuses on military affairs, showing airfields, primary and secondary military ports, major supply routes, overlapping areas of operation of American ships based in Hawaii and Japanese ships based in Yokosuka, various other lines of strategic importance, and the distance between major ports and cities. It has a scale of 1 : 30000000 and includes eight insets (clockwise from bottom-right: San Francisco, the Panama Canal, Manila and surroundings, Honolulu and surroundings, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and surroundings, and Vladivostok). There are also several stamps (off the coast of South America, near the Galapagos Islands, near Acapulco, and South of Java), noting where the American or British air forces had gained the right to use airbases. Most interesting, although the map itself dates from before the war began, there are several handwritten annotations in Japanese noting in detail the date of major battles in the first phase of the war (until the Allied landings on Guadalcanal in August 1942) as well as the forces arrayed on the Allied side, including the number and type of ships and in some cases the names of important ships (aircraft carriers, battleships). East Asia Economic Investigation Bureau ? It is possible that both maps were originally produced by the East Asia Economic Investigation Bureau of the South Manchuria Railway Company (?????????), which would explain the emphasis on military deployments and resources (see Publication History and Census below). The owner who has made the annotations must have been very well informed about the course of the war (including Japanese defeats), especially given the censorship regime that existed at the time; it is certainly possible that they were a member of the Japanese military or government. Given that the map was published in Shanghai, the owner may have been a resident of Shanghai or another treaty port in China where information would have been less-tightly controlled than in the Japanese home islands. Rise and Fall of Empires in the Pacific These two maps show Southeast Asia and the Pacific during a period of tremendous transition, when the territories belonging to Western empires in East Asia had reached their apex, were rapidly conquered by the Japanese in late 1941 and early 1942, and were just beginning the process of being reconquered by the United States and its allies. Japan benefitted from European powers being distracted by the European war (the Netherlands and France were occupied by the Germans when Japan occupied their Asian colonies), as well as a genuine admiration of Japan on the part of many East Asians and a desire to throw off Western imperialism. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (??????), which in theory encompassed all of East and South Asia, was conceived as an economic and cult.

N° de réf. du vendeur SouthPacific-lichangfu-1936

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: [Map of the Current Situation in the Pacific].
• Date de parution: 1936
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • SOUTHEAST-ASIA-MAPS