J. Charles Schencking teaches Japanese history at the University of Melbourne.

Charles Schencking (on leave until 2013) is an Associate Professor in the School of Historical Studies and the Asia Institute where he has taught Japanese history with flair and passion since 2000. Charles brings a truly international background to his subjects, having studied and taught at universities in Britain, Japan, and America.

Charles has published widely on the political, social, and environmental history of Japan. His current research revolves around the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that destroyed Tokyo and the culture of catastrophe and reconstruction in Japan from 1923 to 1930. In 2007, Charles was awarded a Universitas 21 Fellowship for 2008 to collaborate with scholars of natural disasters and interdisciplinary teaching at the National University of Singapore, Hong Kong University, University of British Columbia, and Western Washington University.

This book explores the political emergence of the Imperial Japanese Navy between 1868 and 1922. It fundamentally challenges the popular notion that the navy was a 'silent,' apolitical service. Politics, particularly budgetary politics, became the primary domestic focus—if not the overriding preoccupation—of Japan's admirals in the prewar period. This study convincingly demonstrates that as the Japanese polity broadened after 1890, navy leaders expanded their political activities to secure appropriations commensurate with the creation of a world-class blue-water fleet.

The navy's sophisticated political efforts included lobbying oligarchs, coercing cabinet ministers, forging alliances with political parties, occupying overseas territories, conducting well-orchestrated naval pageants, and launching spirited propaganda campaigns. These efforts succeeded: by 1921 naval expenditures equaled nearly 32 percent of the country's total budget, making Japan the world's third-largest maritime power. The navy, as this book details, made waves at sea and on shore, and in doing so significantly altered the state, society, politics, and empire in prewar Japan.