The United States at the Center of the Action

Abstract

Mark W. Driscoll’s second book from Duke University Press, The Whites Are Enemies of Heaven, is a historical monograph concerning English, French, and US imperialism and resistance in late Qing China and late Edo and earlyMeiji Japan (roughly 1800–1920). The book builds on and significantly extends the focus of Driscoll’s previous work on Japanese imperialism. These include his first book, Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan’s Imperialism, 1895–1945 (2010), as well as his translation of Katsuei Yuasa’s 1934 and 1935 novels concerning the culture of Japanese imperialism, Kannani and Document of Flames (2005). With his first book, Driscoll made his name for an idiosyncratic writing style and the application of diverse concepts from critical theory—especially biopolitics and necropolitics—to interpret the expansion of Japanese imperialism in the early twentieth century and challenge the boundaries of his field. TheWhites Are Enemies of