![]() ![]() ![]() The term “Yellow Peril” supposedly derives from a remark made by German Kaiser Wilhelm II following Japan’s defeat of China in 1895 in the first Sino-Japanese War. The supposed nightmare of Oriental hordes swarming from the East and engulfing the “civilized” societies of the West was a popular theme in the literature and journalism of the time. Today the term “The Yellow Peril” - but not necessarily the fears and fantasies associated with it - has long since passed out of fashion, but it was a widely used expression in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. London deserves to be remembered, however, as a writer on Asia and the Pacific who directly confronted Western racism against Asians, denounced such concepts as “The Yellow Peril” and showed great sympathy for Japanese and Chinese in his literature. ![]() The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and To Build a Fire have retained much of their early popularity, but his visits to Japan, Korea and Manchuria, his brilliant coverage of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), his short stories based in Japan and China, his essays predicting the rise of the Pacific Rim, and his call for mutual respect and better contact between Americans and Japanese are long forgotten. Novelist Jack London (1876-1916), by far the most popular American writer a century ago, is these days remembered for his novels and short stories on the Yukon. ![]()
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