Manchoukuo. A Comprehensive Pictorial Presentation.

Published by Asahi Shimbun-sha, Tokyo, 1940

  • First Edition
  • Hardcover
  • Used
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Seller: Peppermint Rare Books, Erpel, GermanyPeppermint Rare Books

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Hardcover

Condition: Used - Fine

£ 686.91

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Item description from seller

First edition of this monumental and exceptionally scarce state-sponsored photobook, issued under the auspices of the Information Office of the State Council of Manchuria (Manshukoku kokumuin kohosho) and published by Asahi Shimbun at the height of the Japanese imperial project in Northeast Asia. Entirely composed of expansive double-page photographic essays, the volume offers a carefully orchestrated visual narrative of Manchukuo as a modern, orderly, and culturally harmonious polity. Thematically arranged sections – Growing Manchoukuo; Spotlight on Manchoukuo; Population Basis of Manchoukuoan Progress; Religion; Meltingpot of Languages; Fantastic Symbols of Sculptured Art; Food for All Tastes, among others – advance a comprehensive portrait of industry, agriculture, infrastructure, religious practice, ethnic diversity, and geography. Photo-montage techniques, sweeping panoramas, and dynamic compositional devices lend the work a visual rhetoric indebted to contemporary European and Japanese modernist design, while the trilingual text articulates an overtly patriotic and developmentalist ideology. The book’s large format amplifies its propagandistic intent: factories, railways, harvests, and ceremonial pageantry unfold across full spreads with persuasive theatricality. Colour plates punctuate the predominantly monochrome sequence, heightening its effect as both documentary spectacle and political instrument. The synthesis of modernist photobook aesthetics with imperial state messaging renders the work an arresting artefact of wartime visual culture. Not listed in Heiting & Kaneko, The Japanese Photobook and Morioka, Books on Japan 1931-1972. Folio (33.5 x 25.8 cm). Biligual text in English and Japanese. Original light brown cloth, title lettered to the front cover and spine. With the publisher’s pictorial dustwrapper. Cloth and jacket with minor rubbing at the extremities and a few light signs of handling. A very well-preserved copy overall, the contents notably fresh and clean of this extraordinary propaganda photobook – at once visually ambitious and historically revealing.…

Seller Inventory # 00085

Bibliographic details

Title
Manchoukuo. A Comprehensive Pictorial Presentation.
Author
MATSUNO, Shikio (ed.)
Publisher
Asahi Shimbun-sha, Tokyo
Publication year
1940
Condition
Fine
Dust jacket
Dust Jacket Included
Binding
Hardcover
Edition
1st Edition

Peppermint Rare Books

Erpel, Germany

5-star seller

AbeBooks seller since September 10, 2026

Shipping rates from Germany to U.S.A.

Item7 to 21 business days7 to 21 business days
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Store description

Founded in 2014, Peppermint Rare Books specializes in rare and significant books relating to photography, art, and Japan. With many years of experience working with private and institutional collectors, the firm sources and offers carefully selected first editions, artist’s books, photographic publications, and important works from Japan and beyond. Our focus is on exceptional books that reflect the history, development, and cultural significance of photography and the arts.

Specialty

Photography - Art - Japan - Curiosa

Seller's business information

Peppermint Rare Books

Germany