Kelly Hammond (University of Arkansas), Discussant: Kenneth Pomeranz (University of Chicago)

Part of the East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks series, this book talk reveals the little-known story of Japan's interest in Islam during its occupation of North China, Hammond shows how imperial Japanese aimed to defeat the Chinese Nationalists in winning the hearts and minds of Sino-Muslims, a vital minority population. Hammond argues that the competition for their loyalty was central to the creation of the ethnoreligious identity of Muslims living on the Chinese mainland. Their wartime experience ultimately helped shape the formation of Sino-Muslims’ religious identities within global Islamic networks, as well as their incorporation into the Chinese state, where the conditions of that incorporation remain unstable and contested to this day. University of Chicago's Kenneth Pomeranz will serve as Discussant.