In this lesson, students explore primary and secondary sources that shed light on the underlying causes of the outbreak of World War II in Asia. Students examine the rise of Japanese Pan-Asianism, militarism, and ultranationalism, and the racial and imperialist ideologies underpinning them. They also consider Japan’s needs, as a rapidly industrializing country, for China’s natural resources, and its increasingly isolationist stance after what it perceived as mistreatment by imperial Western powers and in the League of Nations. Taken together, these sources give students insight into the complexity of the factors that led to the outbreak of war and provide a framework that will help students prepare to investigate the Nanjing atrocities in the
