"MEPPI Japan Lecture Series – The Tokyo-Berlin Axis, 70 Years Later", February 19.

The Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania presents the next presentation in this year's Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. Japan Lecture Series, ""MEPPI Japan Lecture Series – The Tokyo-Berlin Axis, 70 Years Later", on February 19. The JASP provides an overview of the talk and the speaker:

The lecture will provide an overview of the origins, formation, development, and fall of the Axis alliance between Japan and Germany before and during World War II. How and why did Japan and Germany, so different, distant, and each espousing nationalistic ideologies, come to embrace each other as comrades in arms? How did the Axis function as a diplomatic and military entity? Did Japan and Germany help each other’s war effort, and could they actually have won World War II? The lecture will explore the answers to these questions by examining the history of Japanese-German rapprochement from the end of World War I in 1918 to the conclusion of World War II in 1945. It will discuss major events such as the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Ricky Law is assistant professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University. He first experienced Japan as a participant of the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program in Hokkaido. He returned to Japan as a graduate student to research for his dissertation and received a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently he is completing a book manuscript on the cultural and intellectual backgrounds of the Japanese-German alliance.

The talk runs from 6:00 to 8:00 pm in the Pittsburgh Athletic Association in Oakland (map). Registration is required and can be done online.