Constructing East Asiaexamines how Japanese intellectuals, bureaucrats, and engineers created a "technological imaginary" during the wartime era (19311945) to mobilize people in Japan and its expanding empire. By analyzing how these different actors defined technology in public discourse, national policies, and large-scale infrastructure projects, Aaron Moore explores how technology was used as a system of power. This book challenges the conventional understanding of Japanese wartime ideology as predominantly anti-modern, spiritualist, and irrational. Constructing East Asiapositions the wartime origins of Japan's post-war deployment of technology as an essential part of its national policy and identity. By investigating how technology also operated as a system of power and mobilization, the book questions the predominant narrative of Japan's "economic miracle" whereby technology was largely a force for progress, prosperity, and development both at home and abroad.