In recent years, scholars of the East Asian history of science, technology, and medicine (EASTM) have embraced two shifts in historical approach: a transnational shift attending to the circulations of humans, things, and knowledge across national borders; and a transwar shift challenging the standard periodization into pre- and post-WWII by highlighting the development of science, technology, and medicine in a historical continuum starting from the 1920s.Footnote1 In this context, historian of Japan and northeast Asia Annika A. Culver has written a timely book titled Japan's Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology. Japanese ornithologists from aristocratic backgrounds continuously pursued scientific collaborations with diverse communities and individuals, including Anglo-American ornithologists and local colonial collectors both within and outside of the territories of the Japanese Empire, to achieve what Culver calls “avian imperialism.” Using her expertise in cultural history and extensive archival materials collected from Japan, the UK, and the US, Culver skillfully narrates a variety of transwar collaborations from the early 1910s to the 1970s (or to the present, if one includes her Conclusion). Chronologically, the first six chapters of Empire of Birds cover the “prewar” period, and the final two chapters deal with the “postwar” period up to the 1970s. Her analysis, showing the importance of the intellectual and social connections between Japanese elite ornithologists and Anglo-American scientists in the postwar revitalization of Japanese ornithology, effectively persuades readers to understand the whole history from a transwar perspective.
