If you want to chew on the topics of Race and Racism in East Asia (China, Japan, and Korea), have a look at these books. A bit pricey, but worth a look. This is cross-posted from an email by Rotem Kowner on H-Asia, an email list of https://networks.h-net.org/

– Tim

• Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (editors) Race and Racism in Modern East Asia (vol. II): Interactions, Nationalism, Gender and Lineage (Brill, May 2015)
• Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (editors) Race and Racism in Modern East Asia (vol. I): Western and Eastern Constructions (Brill, paperback edition, September 2014)
• Rotem Kowner From White to Yellow (vol. I): The Japanese in European Racial Thought, 1300-1735 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, December 2014)

Race and Racism in Modern East Asia (vol. II): Interactions, Nationalism, Gender and Lineage (Brill, 2015; 674 pp). ISBN-10: 9004292926; ISBN-13: 978-9004292925

Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (editors)

In this sequel to the volume, Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western and Eastern Constructions, we examine in depth interactions between Western racial constructions of East Asians and local constructions of race and their outcomes in modern times. Focusing on China, Japan and the two Koreas, we also analyze the close ties between race, racism and nationalism, as well as the links race has had with gender and lineage in the region. Written by some of the field’s leading authorities, our 23-chapter volume offers a sweeping overview and analysis of racial constructions and racism in modern and contemporary East Asia that is seemingly unsurpassed in previous scholarship.

For further details: http://www.brill.com/products/book/race-and-racism-modern-east-asia-0

Table of contents

Preface

1 Introduction: The Synthesis of Foreign and Indigenous Constructions of Race in Modern East Asia and Its Actual Operation
Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel

PART I: ANTECEDENTS
2 East Asians in the Linnaean Taxonomy: Sources and Implications of a Racial Image
Rotem Kowner and Christina Skott
3 Constructing Racial Theories on East Asians as a Transnational “Western” Enterprise, 1750–1850
Walter Demel
4 The ‘Races’ of East Asia in Nineteenth-Century European Encyclopaedias
Georg Lehner
5 The Racial Image of the Japanese in the Western Press Published in Japan, 1861–1881
Olavi K. Fält

PART II: INTERACTIONS
6 The Propagation of Racial Thought in Nineteenth-Century China
Daniel Barth
7 Learning from the South: Japan’s Racial Construction of Southern Chinese, 1895–1941
Huei-Ying Kuo
8 “The Great Question of the World Today”: Britain, the Dominions, East Asian Immigration and the Threat of Race War, 1905–1911
Antony Best
9 “Uplifting the Weak and Degenerated Races of East Asia”: American and Indigenous Views of Sport and Body in Early Twentieth-Century East Asia
Stefan Hübner
10 Racism under Negotiation: The Japanese Race in the Nazi-German Perspective
Gerhard Krebs
11 Discourses of Race and Racism in Modern Korea, 1890s–1945
Vladimir Tikhonov
12 The United States Arrives: Racialization and Racism in Post-1945 South Korea
Nadia Y. Kim
13 A Post-Communist Coexistence in Northeast Asia? Mutual Racial Attitudes among Russians and Indigenous Peoples of Siberia
David C. Lewis

PART III: NATIONALISM
14 Nationalism and Internationalism: Sino-American Racial Perceptions of the Korean War
Lü Xun
15 Gangtai Patriotic Songs and Racialized Chinese Nationalism
Yinghong Cheng
16 Japanese as Both a “Race” and a “Non-Race”: The Politics of Jinshu and Minzoku and the Depoliticization of Japaneseness
Yuko Kawai
17 Ethnic Nationalism in Postwar Japan: Nihonjinron and Its Racial Facets
Rotem Kowner and Harumi Befu
18 Ethnic Nationalism and Internationalism in the North Korean Worldview
Tatiana Gabroussenko

PART IV: GENDER AND LINEAGE
19 In the Name of the Master: Race, Nationalism and Masculinity in Chinese Martial Arts Cinema
Kai-man Chang
20 Sexualized Racism, Gender and Nationalism: The Case of Japan’s Sexual Enslavement of Korean “Comfort Women”
Bang-soon L. Yoon
21 “The Guilt Feeling That You Exist”: War, Racism and Indisch-Japanese Identity Formation
Aya Ezawa
22 ‘The “Amerasian” Knot: Transpacific Crossings of “GI Babies” from Korea to the United States
W. Taejin Hwang

PART V: CONCLUSIONS
23 The Essence and Mechanisms of Race and Racism in Modern East Asia
Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel

Amazon site:
http://www.amazon.com/Race-Racism-Modern-East-Asia/dp/9004292926/

Now in paperback edition!
Race and Racism in Modern East Asia (vol. I): Western and Eastern Constructions (Brill, 2014; 618 pp.) ISBN-10: 9004285504; ISBN-13: 978-9004285507
Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (editors)

In Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western and Eastern Constructions we juxtapose Western racial constructions of East Asians with constructions of race and their outcomes in modern East Asia. It is the first endeavor to explicitly and coherently link constructions of race and racism in both regions. These constructions have not only played a decisive role in shaping the relations between the West and East Asia since the mid nineteenth century, but also exert substantial influence on current relations and mutual images in both the East-West nexus and East Asia. Written by some of the field’s leading authorities, this 21-chapter volume offers an analysis of these constructions, their evolution and their interrelations.

For further details: http://www.brill.com/products/book/race-and-racism-modern-east-asia

“Within the historical research on the topic of racism, East Asia has barely played any role. This volume, the outcome of a multi-year project closes this research lacuna. … Overall, the volume is superbly edited and easy to read and will undoubtedly remain, until further notice, the standard work on the subject of race in East Asia. For those interested in the historical development of the concept of race and wish to go beyond the European framework, this volume is highly recommended.”
Sven Saaler, Historische Zeitschrift (2014)

“A gigantic volume, its real strong point is its variety, with papers probing such interesting and understudied topics … The scholarly summaries are very accomplished and provide a wealth of material for understanding that race is neither a fixed nor an atemporal construct, nor is it one that can be simply transferred from Western contexts into Eastern ones. … The essays represent starting points for a variety of new work as such they are very valuable contributions to the burgeoning field. Highly recommended.”
Michael Keevak, Asian Ethnicity (2014)

“This collection of scholarly works explores racial constructions of East Asians from both external and internal perspectives. … Not only does this book help readers understand how racial constructions of the West and East Asia interacted in shaping their relationships in the past, but also, more importantly, how these constructions still influence their current relationships in the 21st century. Summing up: Recommended. All levels/libraries.”
A.Y. Lee, Choice (2013)

Table of contents

Preface

1 Introduction: Modern East Asia and the Rise of Racial Thought: Possible Links, Unique Features, and Unsettled Issues
Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel

PART I: WESTERN RACE THEORIES, RACIAL IMAGES AND RACISM
2 Early Modern European Divisions of Mankind and East Asians, 1500-1750
Walter Demel and Rotem Kowner
3 How the “Mongoloid Race” Came into Being: Late Eighteenth-Century Constructions of East Asians in Europe
Walter Demel
4 Between Contempt and Fear: Western Racial Constructions of East Asians since 1800
Rotem Kowner
5 “A Very Great Gulf”: Late Victorian British Diplomacy and Race in East Asia
T.G. Otte
6 Pan-Mongolians at Twilight: East Asia and Race in Russian Modernism, 1890-1921
Susanna Soojung Lim
7 National Identity and Race in Post-Revolutionary Russia: Pil’niak’s Travelogues from Japan and China
Alexander Bukh
8 Class, Race, Floating Signifier: American Media Imagine the Chinese, 1870-1900
Lenore Metrick-Chen
9 Racism for Beginners: Constructions of Chinese in Twentieth Century Belgian Comics
Idesbald Goddeeris
10 Race, Imperialism, and Reconstructing Selves: Late Nineteenth Century Korea in European Travel Literature
Huajeong Seok
11 Race, Culture and the Reaction to the Japanese Victory of 1905 in the English-Speaking World
Philip Towle

PART II: EAST ASIAN RACE THEORIES, RACIAL POLICIES AND RACISM
12 A Certain Whiteness of Being: Chinese Perceptions of Self by the Beginning of European Contact
Don J. Wyatt
13 Racial Discourse and Utopian Visions in Nineteenth Century China
Sufen Sophia Lai
14 The Discourse of Race in Twentieth-Century China
Frank Dikötter
15 Racist South Korea? Diverse but not Tolerant of Diversity
Gi-Wook Shin
16 Skin Color Melancholy in Modern Japan: Male Elites’ Racial Experiences Abroad, 1880s-1950s
Ayu Majima
17 Anatomically Speaking: The Kubo Incident and the Paradox of Race in Colonial Korea
Hoi-eun Kim
18 Who Classified Whom, and for What Purpose? The “Japanese” in Northeast China in the Age of Empire
Mariko Asano Tamanoi
19 Race and International Law in Japan’s New Order in East Asia, 1938-1945
Urs Matthias Zachmann
20 East Asia’s “Melting-Pot”: Reevaluating Race Relations in Japan’s Colonial Empire
Yukiko Koshiro
21 Categorical Confusion: President Obama as a Case Study of Racialized Practices in Contemporary Japan
Christine R. Yano

Amazon site:
http://www.amazon.com/Race-Racism-Modern-East-Asia/dp/9004285504/

From White to Yellow (vol. I): The Japanese in European Racial Thought, 1300-1735 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014, 706 pp.) ISBN-10: 0773544550; ISBN-13: 978-0773544550

Rotem Kowner (author)

When Europeans first landed in Japan they encountered people they perceived as white-skinned and highly civilized, but these impressions did not endure. Gradually the Europeans’ positive impressions faded away and Japanese were seen as yellow-skinned and relatively inferior. Accounting for this dramatic transformation, I examine of the evolution of European interpretations of the Japanese and the emergence of discourses about race in early modern Europe. Transcending the conventional focus on Africans and Jews within the rise of modern racism, I seek to demonstrate that the invention of race did not emerge in a vacuum in eighteenth-century Europe, but rather was a direct product of earlier discourses of the “Other.” All in all, I contend that the racial discourse on the Japanese, alongside the Chinese, played a major role in the rise of the modern concept of race. While challenging Europe’s self-possession and sense of centrality, the discourse delayed the eventual consolidation of a hierarchical worldview in which Europeans stood immutably at the apex. Drawing from a vast array of primary sources, I also attempted to trace the racial roots of the modern clash between Japan and the West.

For further details: http://www.mqup.ca/from-white-to-yellow-products-9780773544550.php

“This magisterial work fills an important gap in contemporary scholarship about racial history and European perceptions of the Japanese during the age of maritime explorations, beginning with the voyages of Marco Polo. The author approaches a delicate and complex topic with a breadth of knowledge and erudition based on the careful analysis of primary documents from a wide variety of both printed and manuscript sources in numerous languages.”
M. Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J. Director, Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco

“Rotem Kowner has written an extraordinary book which will be must-reading for anyone interested in Western perceptions of the Japanese from the beginning (Marco Polo’s account) to the 18th century, and to anyone interested in the history of the very concept of ‘race.’”
Gary Leupp, Department of History, Tufts University

“Erudite, comprehensive, and clearly-written, From White to Yellow offers the reader a panorama of the Euro-Japanese encounter in the pre-modern period that is unsurpassed in previous scholarship.”
Ronnie Hsia, Department of History, Pennsylvania State University

Table of contents

Preface
Introduction

PHASE I – SPECULATION: Pre-Encounter Knowledge of the Japanese (1300-1543)
1 The Emergence of “Cipangu” and Its Precursory Ethnography
2 The “Cipanguese” at the Opening of the Age of Discovery

PHASE II – OBSERVATION: A Burgeoning Discourse of Initial Encounters (1543-1640)
3 Initial Observations of the Japanese
4 The Japanese Position in Contemporary Hierarchies
5 Concrete Mirrors of a New Human Order
6 “Race” and Its Cognitive Limits during the Phase of Observation

PHASE III – RECONSIDERATION: Antecedents of a Mature Discourse (1640-1735)
7 Dutch Reappraisal of the Japanese Body and Origins
8 Power, Status, and the Japanese Position in the Global Order
9 In Search of a New Taxonomy: Botany, Medicine, and the Japanese
10 “Race” and Its Perceptual Limits during the Phase of Reconsideration

Conclusion: The Discourse of Race in Early Modern Europe and the Japanese Case

Amazon sites:

http://www.amazon.ca/White-Yellow-Japanese-European-1300-1735/dp/0773544550/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1418745991

or

http://www.amazon.com/White-Yellow-Japanese-European-1300-1735/dp/0773544550/ref=la_B001HPYIKK_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418745737&sr=1-1