JF Ptak Science Books
Ralph Townsend provided one of the oddest, least-time-conscious, and pernicious titles (printed in 1938!) in my experience with pulpy propagandistic quick-publications of the 1930's. Townsend (1900-1976) was a Columbia School of Journalism product, but something happened, and emerged in the 1930's as a deep Sinophobe, an anti-Roosevelt anti-interventionist far-right apologist for the imperialism of the Japanese government.
He got into trouble after Pearl Harbor, deeper in 1942, for being an unregistered agent of the Japanese government and was sent to jail. He survived himself and had a career writing about his very far right-wing ideas, and is evidently a favorite of some out-on-the-end-of-the-spectrum Right Wing folks today for his isolationist and ultra-orthodox America-for Americans views.
- Townsend, Ralph. America has No Enemies in Asia. Seemingly self-published, 7x5", 48pp. Provenance: Library of Congress Pamphlet Collection; noted on the back of the title page the pamphlet was "a gift of the author" to the L.C. Small "LC' perforation on cover, otherwise nice condition. $50
What it boils down to in Asia, for Townsend, is that the Sino-Japanese war as the fault of the Chinese, and that Japan simply fought to protect its interests, and then, with the occupation of China, to further protect itself and (yes) China. This sort of thing still happens.
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