Tosh Minohara is professor of US-Japan relations at Kobe University.

Evan Dawley is associate professor of history at Goucher College.

Introduction: 1919, East Asia, and the Dawning of a New Era

Part I: Era of Sovereignty and Nationalism in East Asia

Chapter 1: Building China Abroad: May Fourth, Overseas Chinese, and the Construction of the Chinese Nation-State

Chapter 2: From Trust to Mistrust: Sino-Japanese Relations after the Versailles Settlement

Chapter 3: The Rise of a New Generation: May Fourth Intellectual Factionalism and the Attacks on Kang Youwei

Chapter 4: The Buryat-Mongol National Movement and Japanese Interests in Siberia, 1917-1919

Chapter 5: 1919: The Historical Origin of the New Cold War on the Korean Peninsula

Part II: War, Peace, and Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific Era

Chapter 6: The Elusive Equality: Versailles as a Turning Point in U.S.-Japan Race Relations

Chapter 7: Making Peace from the Great War: A Generational Shift in Japanese Diplomacy in 1919

Chapter 8: A Lost Chance for Peace: The China Crisis of 1919 and the Debate on Japanese-Chinese Friendship in Japan

Chapter 9: Naval Powers in the Pacific at the Crossroads

Chapter 10: Future War and Future Peace after 1919: Ishiwara Kanji and the Imperial Japanese Army in the Wake of the First World War

Chapter 11: Tragic War, Lasting Peace: Japan and the Construction of Global Peace, 1919-1930

This edited collection examines the fundamental role East Asians played in reshaping the world order during the interwar period. The contributors argue that Japan, China, Korea, and Mongolia sought to redefine the concept of sovereignty to advance their own interests after the Treaty of Versailles was signed.