Asia is becoming closer to us in the current globalization, along with its history in the 19th and 20th centuries. As this volume demonstrates, the war of 1904/05 was not an isolated event in the Far East. When Japan's victory over Russia astonished the world more than a hundred years ago, the admiration for the rising nation was also mixed with concern: Did this war not reveal the implications of the 'Yellow Peril'? On the other hand, President Theodore Roosevelt, who mediated the peace settlement in Portsmouth, acknowledged that Japan was the first non-Western country to rise into the circle of civilized nations. This volume gathers contributions from historians and regionally focused scholars from the University of Heidelberg, presenting the latest research findings on the occasion of the centenary of the event. In addition to analyses of the domestic and foreign political situations of the two warring parties, Russia and Japan, the context of the war is examined in relation to the Eastern Question in Europe, as well as its implications for the USA, China, Korea, and India. It becomes clear that this war was not a distant event but part of world history.