Introduction: World War, diary writing, and the self
Talk about heroes: military diaries in the modern world
Self-mobilization and the discipline of the battlefield: the battle for Shanghai and northern China
Assembling the "new order": reconstitution of self through diary writing
The unbearable likeness of being: the transnational phenomenon of self-discipline during the Pacific War
The physics of writing war: recording the destruction of the Japanese Empire
The consequences of self-discipline: postwar historical memory and veterans' narratives
Conclusion: the peril of self-discipline.