Comparative Studies of Perceptions of the Pacific Ocean in the United States from the mid-19th Century to the beginning of the 20th Century

我发现日本人和美国人在19世纪末和20世纪初对太平洋的看法有很大的不同。自19世纪以来，美国人为获得科学而系统的太平洋愿景做出了巨大努力。美国海军水文部门中尉马修·F·莫里的职业生涯和成就就是最好的例子。他为19世纪中期美国海洋学的兴起做出了贡献。就连20世纪之交最重要的美国海军战略家阿尔弗雷德·T·马汉也继承了这一传统。例如，他强调夏威夷群岛是太平洋霸权的战略支点，这源于他对海洋的主导地位取决于海军系统部署的理解。另一方面，美国的许多文学评论家和历史学家将太平洋岛屿的生活和文化视为与他们自己的文明的对立面。有些人…更多的人认为，他们预见了太平洋地区多民族、多种族的美国的未来。这一愿景在他们的脑海中若隐若现，特别是在1898年美国夺取菲律宾和夏威夷群岛之后，日本人直到佩里号到达后才开始设想日本在太平洋上的地位。很快，他们形成了“南洋(南海)”的地理概念，他们认为南洋既不包括在西方，也不包括在东方。在他们看来，日本应该成为该地区的领导者，反对欧美列强的入侵。然而，许多主张日本向南洋发展的人并没有对南洋在世界上的地理和社会政治人物有任何详细和现实的了解。这种对太平洋南部南洋的奇特贫瘠的景象，在1910年与三郎的《南国》中得到了最好的表达。竹越在书中赞扬了日本帝国在南洋的崛起，并强调了南洋人的日本化对于赢得东西方文明竞争的重要性。但他从未完全描绘过这些人的生活和文化。日本人和美国人对太平洋的看法的对比告诉我们，在太平洋地区，不同文化的人的当代经历很容易导致彼此不信任。因此，对太平洋远景的比较研究对于我们平衡了解太平洋周边国家的多边和多层次历史经验是必不可少的。较少

I found significant difference between Japanese and American perceptions of the Pacific Ocean in the late 19^<th> -and the early 20^<th>-_century.Since the 19^<th>-century, Americans have made great efforts to gain a scientific and systematic vision of the Pacific Ocean. The career and achievements of Mathew F. Maury, a lieutenant of the hydrographical department in the American navy was its best example. He contributed to the rise of the ocean logy in the mid-19^<th> century America. Even Alfred T. Mahan, the foremost American naval strategist at the turn of the 20^<th> century, inherited this tradition. His emphasis on Hawaii islands as the strategic pivot for the hegemony of the Pacific Ocean, for instance, derived from his understanding of the dominance of ocean depending on systematic deployment of naval forces. On the other hand, many literary critics and historians in America looked at life and culture of Pacific islands as antitheses against their own civilization. Some people … More even believed that they foresaw the future of mutli-national and multi-ethnic America in the Pacific area. That vision loomed up in their mind especially after the US gained the Philippines and Hawaii islands in 1898.Japanese started to envision Japan's position in the Pacific only after the Perry's arrival. Soon they molded the geographical concept of "Nanyo (the South Sea Area)", which they thought to be included neither in the West nor in the East. Japan, in their expectation, should become the leader of that area and stood against the invasion of the Euro-American powers. Many of the proponents of Japanese development into the Nanyo, however, did not have any detailed and realistic understanding of geographical and socio-political figure of the Nanyo in the world. This peculiarly barren vision of Nanyo, a Southern part of the Pacific Ocean, found its best expression in Takekoshi Yosaburo's Nangokuki of 1910. In it, Takekoshi hailed the rise of Imperial Japan in the Nanyo and emphasized the importance of Japanization of Nanyo peoples to win competition of civilizations between the East and the West. But he never fully depicted the life and culture of those peoples.The contrast between Japanese and American perceptions of the Pacific Ocean teaches us that in the Pacific area the contemporaneous experience of peoples of different cultures could easily lead to the distrust of each other. Thus comparative studies of the visions of the Pacific are indispensable for us to gain balanced understanding of multilateral and multi-layered historical experiences of the nations surrounding the Pacific. Less