The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century
"The collective name 'Southeast Asia' was created in Japan during the First World War." (p. 137) "The category the 'West', for example, [...] cannot be found as a dominant figure of thought before the 1890s." (P.143) "In the long nineteenth century there was much more talk of the 'civilized world' than of the 'West'. [...] In Japan it was even the goal of national politics to be accepted as a civilized country." (P.144)