Bodleian Libraries users now have access to Contemporary Japan Online from Brill. This is an online collection of most issues of the periodical Contemporary Japan (ISSN 0388-0214) published from 1932 to 1970.

Published from Tokyo under Japanese editorship before, during, and after WWII, Contemporary Japan is unique in its even-handed treatment of the Japanese view. Described as ‘a relative beacon of rationality in chaotic and confusing times’, Contemporary Japan was published by the semi-official Foreign Affairs Association of Japan. It counted both Japanese and Western commentators, many of which sincere Pan-Asianists cautiously but clearly voicing their disillusionment with the increasingly heated war-time rhetoric, the road to war against China – and the way the ‘reverse course’ went from 1947–1952.