How Journalists Shaped American Foreign Policy: A Case Study of Japan's Military Seizure of Korea.

• Author: Benavidez, Gina Covert
• Position: ASIA - Book review

Metraux, Daniel A. How Journalists Shaped American Foreign Policy: A Case Study of Japan's Military Seizure of Korea. Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen Press, 2017.

It is often said that history is written by the winners. In Daniel Metraux's How Journalists Shaped American Foreign Policy: A Case Study of Japans Military Seizure of Korea, the author presents history as understood from the perspective of seven influential journalists to demonstrate the variety of interpretation each journalist chose regarding the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1895 to 1910. Metraux, an accomplished Asian studies scholar at Mary Baldwin University, warns readers of falling prey to the Rashomon effect, or the danger of understanding only one side of a story. Metraux examined the reporting of seven different journalists, each of whom had a different take on what motivated...