Jeremy A. Yellen is a historian of modern Japan based in Hong Kong. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, and is currently an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Jeremy’s research focuses on modern Japan’s international, diplomatic, and political history. His work largely grapples with questions of warfare, empire, diplomacy, and international order, and pair Japanese high policy during World War II with developments in the periphery of Japan’s empire. Much of his work makes use of transnational and comparative perspectives to place Japanese history in its proper global context. His first book, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War, was published by Cornell University Press in April 2019, and his second book, Japan at War, 1914-1952 was published as part of Routledge’s seminar studies series in 2025.
In a few side projects, he has also ventured into the social and cultural history of wartime and postwar Japan. Some projects highlight the jubilation with which Japanese writers, poets, and much of the broader populace met the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941. Others works deal with the rise of men’s magazines in the 1960s, the politics of storytelling in both wartime and postwar Japan, and the political meanings of remembering the PT-109 incident in both the United States and Japan.