… Japanese-American War: A Narrative (1909).
"Representative of a number of Invasion Literature by-way-of Future History novels, Ernest Hugh Fitzpatrick's The Coming Conflict of Nations; or, the Japanese-American War: A Narrative is a sometimes painfully anti-literary book. To his credit, Fitzpatrick at least warns us of this fact. Tucked away in the pages of chapter three, he says:
It is not the purpose of this narrative to enter into biographical sketches of those individuals who played the leading roles in this great and world-wide tragedy, for only in a few selected instances will names be mentioned, but this narrative will dwell upon the study of those mighty events as a whole, leaving to others the biographical sketches of those who carried out the production of this great and absorbing drama of which the whole world was the stage.
Perhaps he overestimates how great and absorbing the drama is, most likely because he dispenses with any drama whatsoever. If by "drama" we mean a story of engaging characters, there is none. Fitzpatrick's passion is clearly for politics on a global scale and, for a good chunk of the final chapters, military tactics. His work is provocative for the slightly skewed manner in which he got certain things right.
The most obvious one of these is the thing to which the title refers. The Coming Conflict of Nations is just one of several anticipations of armed conflict between East and West written in the years succeeding the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War. Whether to Ernest Hugh Fitzpatrick or Milo Hastings or Jack London or Shunro Oshikawa or Ichiu Miyazaki, it seemed that a clash between the preeminent powers flanking the Pacific was inevitable…"
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Amicalement
Armand
