Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State is not just a welcome, more detailed addition to the few English-language studies of an important group of wartime civilian planners. It presents a broader perspective on their goals, revealing their impact beyond the wartime period. Impeded by the pre-1945 political framework and the resistance of their influential opponents, these officials were better able in the years following Japan's defeat to advance their vision of a new state and society dominated by middle-class professionals possessing technical or scientific expertise.
