A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan, by Timothy Yang, was shortlisted for the International Convention of Asia Scholars 2023 Book Prize in the Social Sciences category.
In A Medicated Empire, Timothy M. Yang explores the history of Japan's pharmaceutical industry in the early twentieth century through a close account of Hoshi Pharmaceuticals, one of East Asia's most influential drug companies from the late 1910s through the early 1950s. Focusing on Hoshi's connections to Japan's emerging nation-state and empire, and on the ways in which it embraced an ideology of modern medicine as a humanitarian endeavor for greater social good, Yang shows how the industry promoted a hygienic, middle-class culture that was part of Japan's national development and imperial expansion.
Read our interview with the author here.
