At the turn of the 20th Century, Japanese ‘villages' and their exotic occupants delighted and mystified visitors to the Great Exhibitions and Worlds' Fairs . At the beginning of the 21st Century, Japanese tourists have reversed the gaze and now may visit a range of European ‘countries', as well as several other cultural worlds, without ever leaving the shores of Japan. This book suggests that these and other exciting Asian theme parks pose a challenge to Western notions of leisure, education, and entertainment. Is this a case of reverse orientalism? Or is it simply a commercial follow-up on the success of Tokyo Disneyland? Is it an appropriation by one rich nation of a whole world of cultural delights from the countries that have influenced its twentieth-century success? Can the parks be seen as political statements about the heritage on which Japan now draws so freely? Or are they new forms of ethnographic museum? Examining Japanese parks in the context of a variety of historical examples of cultural display in Europe, the U.S. and Australia, as well as other Asian examples, the author calls into question the too easy adoption of postmodern theory as an ethnocentrically Western phenomenon and clearly shows that Japan has given theme parks an entirely new mode of interpretation.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Japanese ‘villages' and their exotic occupants delighted and mystified visitors to the Great Exhibitions and Worlds' Fairs . At the beginning of the 21st Century, Japanese tourists have reversed the gaze and now may visit a range of European ‘countries', as well as several other cultural worlds, without ever leaving the shores of Japan. This book suggests that these and other exciting Asian theme parks pose a challenge to Western notions of leisure, education, and entertainment. Is this a case of reverse orientalism? Or is it simply a commercial follow-up on the success of Tokyo Disneyland? Is it an appropriation by one rich nation of a whole world of cultural delights from the countries that have influenced its twentieth-century success? Can the parks be seen as political statements about the heritage on which Japan now draws so freely? Or are they new forms of ethnographic museum? Examining Japanese parks in the context of a variety of historical examples of cultural display in Europe, the U.S. and Australia, as well as other Asian examples, the author calls into question the too easy adoption of postmodern theory as an ethnocentrically Western phenomenon and clearly shows that Japan has given theme parks an entirely new mode of interpretation.

While scholarly works on this topic have to date mainly concentrated on Japan's influences in economic and political terms, this volume examines Japanese influences in Asia from a broader perspective. The text takes into account human factors, such as the presence of Japanese people as workers, managers and visitors in Asian societies and the flow of Japanese goods in terms on their impact on popular culture. In addition, the book examines the feelings within other Asian nations such as India and Malaysia to the Japanese presence, looking at Japanese the people’s aspirations, expectations and at times disappointments. Written by Asian and Western scholars from variety of academic perspectives, the essays in this volume analyze the topic at both macro- and micro-levels. They examine the variegated and highly differing influences and presences of Japan as seen from a number of view points, from street perspectives and the world of popular culture, to global political issues, to questions of regional investment and the cultural and economic aspirations of Chinese students in Japan.

Across the globe, history has gone public. With the rise of the internet, family historians are now delving into archives continents apart. Activists look into and recreate the past to promote social justice or environmental causes. Dark and difficult pasts are confronted at sites of commemoration. Artists draw on memory and the past to study the human condition and make meaning in the present. As a result of this democratisation of history, public history movements have now risen to prominence. This groundbreaking edited collection takes a comprehensive look at public history throughout the world. Divided into three sections - Background, Definitions and Issues; Approaches and Methods; and Sites of Public History - it contextualises public history in eleven different countries, explores the main research skills and methods of the discipline and illustrates public history research with a variety of global case studies. What is Public History Globally? provides an in-depth examination of the ways in which ordinary people become active participants in historical processes and it will be an invaluable resource for advance undergraduates and postgraduates studying public history, museology and heritage studies.

Traditionally social and cultural accounts of tourism have limited their analytical gaze to the spaces and places where tourism is performed. This book scrutinizes the multiple ways in which tourism emerges in people’s everyday lives and the everyday appears in people’s tourist’ lives by tracing out the mobilities, networks and flows between ‘home’ and ‘away’ in tourist performances

Reading Graphic Design in Cultural Context explains key ways of understanding and interpreting the graphic designs we see all around us, in advertising, branding, packaging and fashion. It situates these designs in their cultural and social contexts. Drawing examples from a range of design genres, leading design historians Grace Lees-Maffei and Nicolas P. Maffei explain theories of semiotics, postmodernism and globalisation, and consider issues and debates within visual communication theory such as legibility, the relationship of word and image, gender and identity, and the impact of digital forms on design. Their discussion takes in well-known brands like Alessi, Nike, Unilever and Tate, and everyday designed things including slogan t-shirts, car advertising, ebooks, corporate logos, posters and music packaging.

While the twentieth century’s conflicting visions and exploitation of the Middle East are well documented, the origins of the concept of the Middle East itself have been largely ignored. With Dislocating the Orient, Daniel Foliard tells the story of how the land was brought into being, exploring how maps, knowledge, and blind ignorance all participated in the construction of this imagined region. Foliard vividly illustrates how the British first defined the Middle East as a geopolitical and cartographic region in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through their imperial maps. Until then, the region had never been clearly distinguished from “the East” or “the Orient.” In the course of their colonial activities, however, the British began to conceive of the Middle East as a separate and distinct part of the world, with consequences that continue to be felt today. As they reimagined boundaries, the British produced, disputed, and finally dramatically transformed the geography of the area—both culturally and physically—over the course of their colonial era. Using a wide variety of primary texts and historical maps to show how the idea of the Middle East came into being, Dislocating the Orient will interest historians of the Middle East, the British empire, cultural geography, and cartography.