Cultures Of Modernity And The Us Japan Cold War Alliance

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Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance

Author : Masami Kimura
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040089704
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance by : Masami Kimura

Download or read book Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance written by Masami Kimura and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance reconsiders the origins of postwar U.S.-Japan relations by focusing on “modernization” ideologies that the Americans and the Japanese shared in the 1940s–early 1950s. Mobilizing a wealth of English and Japanese-language sources, the author identifies parallel groups of modernist thinkers in America and Japan – including politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, scholars, and journalists – and follows how different strands of thought played out within an evolving political environment, forming a “middle ground.” Despite their differences, both the Americans and the Japanese believed in the progressive view of history, considered Japan to be still underdeveloped, and therefore agreed on the advisability of democratizing Japan – which included constitutional reform. Whether proponents or opponents of the U.S.-Japan Cold War alliance system, they also shared the vision of Wilsonian internationalism and devised similar designs for a postwar Asian order where Japan would rejoin. Thus, by showing how the confluence of modernist cultures helped forge a postwar relationship between the two, this study contributes to the field of postwar U.S.-Japan relations by supplementing and reorienting the scope of scholarship, one that has been predominantly America-centered and framed along the line of diplomatic narratives informed by Cold War politics.

Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance

Author : Masami Kimura (Historian)
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781032557137
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (571 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance by : Masami Kimura (Historian)

Download or read book Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance written by Masami Kimura (Historian) and published by . This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cultures of Modernity and the U.S.-Japan Cold War Alliance reconsiders the origins of postwar U.S.-Japan relations by focusing on "modernization" ideologies that the Americans and the Japanese shared in the 1940s-early 1950s. Mobilizing a wealth of English and Japanese-language sources, the author identifies parallel groups of modernist thinkers in America and Japan - including politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, scholars, and journalists - and follows how different strands of thought played out within an evolving political environment, forming a "middle ground." Despite their differences, both the Americans and the Japanese believed in the progressive view of history, considered Japan to be still underdeveloped, and therefore agreed on the advisability of democratizing Japan - which included constitutional reform. Whether proponents or opponents of the U.S.-Japan Cold War alliance system, they also shared the vision of Wilsonian internationalism and devised similar designs for a postwar Asian order where Japan would rejoin. Thus, by showing how the confluence of modernist cultures helped forge a postwar relationship between the two, this study contributes to the field of postwar U.S.-Japan relations by supplementing and reorienting the scope of scholarship, one that has been predominantly America-centered and framed along the line of diplomatic narratives informed by Cold War politics"--

Cultures of Modernity in the Making of the United States-Japan Cold War Alliance

Author : Masami Kimura
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 439 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (867 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultures of Modernity in the Making of the United States-Japan Cold War Alliance by : Masami Kimura

Download or read book Cultures of Modernity in the Making of the United States-Japan Cold War Alliance written by Masami Kimura and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation explores the cultural and intellectual factors in the remaking of US-Japan relations which transformed as the two countries transitioned from enemies to allies after 1945. Diverging from the traditional approaches of diplomatic and political history that, focusing on state actors, describe policymaking processes, I comparatively study public discourses in 1940s-early 1950s America and Japan where various groups and actors - politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, scholars, and intellectuals - participated and created. Both peoples shared a similar discourse concerning modernization and, indeed, developed parallel ideas about modern Japanese history and the causes of Japanese militarism, the postwar democratization of Japan, and the making of a postwar Asian peace. They believed in the European progressive view of history, variously interpreted, and judged Japan to be "underdeveloped," compared with the "advanced West," having become an unlawful aggressor nation in the 1930s. Such views of a "failed" modernity and subsequent war rationalized Allied occupation and democratization reforms in post-surrender Japan. The more influenced by Marxian theories, the more critical they were of Japan's incomplete modernization, and the more enthusiastic for Allied - or American - intervention in postwar reforms. American and Japanese discourses on the reform of Japan's political organization, namely constitutional revision, show similar reformist plans from reconstruction of the constitutional monarchy to republican options. Those adopting Marxist analyses found the root cause of Japan's undemocratic and aggressive nature in the emperor system called for its elimination; those who did not believe that democratization required the overthrow of monarchy suggested reforming Japan's imperial institution to make democratic government function better. In addition, both Americans and Japanese shared the Wilsonian idea of internationalism, and they expected Japan to reenter the postwar Asia-Pacific as a totally demilitarized, democratic, and pacifist country that could contribute to peace and development of the region. With the Cold War, the US policies for Asia and Japan altered. So did the internationalist visions, causing political debates in the United States and Japan. My work ultimately shows such parallel and intersecting cultures where US-Japan relations were rehabilitated in the immediate-postwar years.

Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire

Author : Park Yuha
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040103375
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire by : Park Yuha

Download or read book Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire written by Park Yuha and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an important and controversial work, hitherto available only in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, a book which has been subject to court cases attempting to have some parts deleted. The author reconsiders the issue of the “comfort women,” that is the Korean women who were compelled to provide sexual comfort to Japanese troops during the Asia-Pacific War. She explores the human complexity of the experiences of these women, who despite terrible exploitation, she feels, cannot and should not only be considered as passive victims. She sets the issue in context, revealing how Korean society played a role, with patriarchy and middlemen being significant factors in the procurement of comfort women, and how alongside the comfort women there were volunteer labor corps of Korean young women supporting the Japanese war effort. The author highlights Korea’s colonial status, different from the territories Japan invaded and conquered, discusses how relations between colonizers and colonized in an empire are not straightforward, and argues that people should work to understand more fully the mindset of those at the time, and refrain from forcing values from the present to resolve indignities of the past. Aiming to find a way to pursue reconciliation while looking more closely at the history, the book provides substantial consideration of key issues to do with empire, memorialization, and censorship. It is an uncomfortable read for those seeking simplistic interpretations and easy solutions.

Japan in the American Century

Author : Kenneth B. Pyle
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674989082
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis Japan in the American Century by : Kenneth B. Pyle

Download or read book Japan in the American Century written by Kenneth B. Pyle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No nation was more deeply affected by America’s rise to world power than Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt’s uncompromising policy of unconditional surrender led to the catastrophic finale of the Asia-Pacific War and the most intrusive international reconstruction of another nation in modern history. Japan in the American Century examines how Japan, with its deeply conservative heritage, responded to the imposition of a new liberal order. The price Japan paid to end the occupation was a cold war alliance with the United States that ensured America’s dominance in the region. Still traumatized by its wartime experience, Japan developed a grand strategy of dependence on U.S. security guarantees so that the nation could concentrate on economic growth. Yet from the start, despite American expectations, Japan reworked the American reforms to fit its own circumstances and cultural preferences, fashioning distinctively Japanese variations on capitalism, democracy, and social institutions. Today, with the postwar world order in retreat, Japan is undergoing a sea change in its foreign policy, returning to an activist, independent role in global politics not seen since 1945. Distilling a lifetime of work on Japan and the United States, Kenneth Pyle offers a thoughtful history of the two nations’ relationship at a time when the character of that alliance is changing. Japan has begun to pull free from the constraints established after World War II, with repercussions for its relations with the United States and its role in Asian geopolitics.

Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan

Author : Adam Broinowski
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1780935978
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan by : Adam Broinowski

Download or read book Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan written by Adam Broinowski and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-14 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan examines how the performing arts, and the performing body specifically, have shaped and been shaped by the political and historical conditions experienced in Japan during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. This study of original and secondary materials from the fields of theatre, dance, performance art, film and poetry, probes the interrelationship that exists between the body and the nation-state. Important artistic works, such as Ankoku Butoh (dance of darkness) and its subsequent re-interpretation by a leading political performance company Gekidan Kaitaisha (theatre of deconstruction), are analysed using ethnographic, historical and theoretical modes. This approach reveals the nuanced and prolonged effects of military, cultural and political occupation in Japan over a duration of dramatic change. Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan explores issues of discrimination, marginality, trauma, memory and the mediation of history in a ground-breaking work that will be of great significance to anyone interested in the symbiosis of culture and conflict.

Sino-Muslims, Networking, and Identity in Late Imperial China

Author : Shaodan Zhang
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040093272
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Sino-Muslims, Networking, and Identity in Late Imperial China by : Shaodan Zhang

Download or read book Sino-Muslims, Networking, and Identity in Late Imperial China written by Shaodan Zhang and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-12 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the everyday life of Muslims in late imperial China proper (“Sino-Muslims”), revealing how they integrated themselves into Chinese society, while also maintaining distinct Islamic features. Deeming “identity” as practical, interactive, and processual, it focuses on Sino-Muslims’ daily networking practices which embodied their numerous processes of identification with people around them. Through an evaluation of such practices, it displays how, since the early seventeenth century, Sino-Muslims vigorously formed and participated in popular religious and secular networks at local, translocal, and China-wide scales, including mosques, merchant associations, gentry groups, Islamic educational and publishing networks. It demonstrates how such networks facilitated Sino-Muslims to become more aligned with the tempo of change in Chinese society and imperial governance, and created for them more ingenious venues and means to identify with Islam. Ultimately it reveals how, by the first half of the nineteenth century, a sense of collectivity—with common knowledge, memory, and discourse—was generated among dispersed Sino-Muslims. Utilizing Sino-Muslims’ own records such as steles, genealogies, and Chinese Islamic texts, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative Muslim studies, Qing and early modern China, religious and ethnic identity, and professionals of Sino-Arab relations.

Traditional Malay Monarchy

Author : Haji Awg Asbol bin Haji Mail
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040102476
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Traditional Malay Monarchy by : Haji Awg Asbol bin Haji Mail

Download or read book Traditional Malay Monarchy written by Haji Awg Asbol bin Haji Mail and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-19 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This remarkable book brings to an English-speaking audience detailed scholarship originally conceived and written in the Malay language and with a Malay perspective. It examines the nature of monarchy in the Malay world, which includes present-day Malaysia and Indonesia, before and during the onset of Western colonialism when the Malay world was ruled by a large number of separate Muslim sultanates. It highlights that monarchs were the highest authority in the social, political, legal and economic system, rather than the government of a clearly defined territory; the notion of Dewaraja (god-king) and what a model monarch’s attributes should be; and how the monarch’s role related to Islamic principles, including the Islamic ideal of the Caliph of God meting out fair judgement and punishment. Two prominent and pivotal concepts of traditional Malay society, that of daulat (sovereignty) and derhaka (disloyalty) are here analysed and evaluated against the background of the period of absolute monarchy. Moreover, this volume also discusses the parts played by leading ministers and viziers, who often exercised enormous power, explores the role of monarchs in managing and regulating economic activity, and outlines differences between the different sultanates.

Japan’s Cold War

Author : Ann Sherif
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 023151834X
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Japan’s Cold War by : Ann Sherif

Download or read book Japan’s Cold War written by Ann Sherif and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-05 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critics and cultural historians take Japan's postwar insularity for granted, rarely acknowledging the role of Cold War concerns in the shaping of Japanese society and culture. Nuclear anxiety, polarized ideologies, gendered tropes of nationhood, and new myths of progress, among other developments, profoundly transformed Japanese literature, criticism, and art during this era and fueled the country's desire to recast itself as a democratic nation and culture. By rereading the pivotal events, iconic figures, and crucial texts of Japan's literary and artistic life through the lens of the Cold War, Ann Sherif places this supposedly insular nation at the center of a global battle. Each of her chapters focuses on a major moment, spectacle, or critical debate highlighting Japan's entanglement with cultural Cold War politics. Film director Kurosawa Akira, atomic bomb writer Hara Tamiki, singer and movie star Ishihara Yujiro, and even Godzilla and the Japanese translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover all reveal the trends and controversies that helped Japan carve out a postwar literary canon, a definition of obscenity, an idea of the artist's function in society, and modern modes of expression and knowledge. Sherif's comparative approach not only recontextualizes seemingly anomalous texts and ideas, but binds culture firmly to the domestic and international events that defined the decades following World War II. By integrating the art and criticism of Japan into larger social fabrics, Japan's Cold War offers a truly unique perspective on the critical and creative acts of a country remaking itself in the aftermath of war.

PACIFIC COSMOPOLITANS

Author : Michael R. Auslin
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674060806
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis PACIFIC COSMOPOLITANS by : Michael R. Auslin

Download or read book PACIFIC COSMOPOLITANS written by Michael R. Auslin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-05 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the first Japanese and Americans to make contact in the early 1800s, Michael Auslin traces a unique cultural relationship. He focuses on organizations devoted to cultural exchange, such as the American Friends’ Association in Tokyo and the Japan Society of New York, as well as key individuals who promoted mutual understanding.

Soft Power and Its Perils

Author : Takeshi Matsuda
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804700405
Total Pages : 422 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Soft Power and Its Perils by : Takeshi Matsuda

Download or read book Soft Power and Its Perils written by Takeshi Matsuda and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the cultural aspects of U.S.-Japan relations during the postwar Occupation and the early Cold War

The Us-Japan Relation in Culture and Diplomacy

Author : Kazuo Yagami
Publisher : Balboa Press
ISBN 13 : 1504395794
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis The Us-Japan Relation in Culture and Diplomacy by : Kazuo Yagami

Download or read book The Us-Japan Relation in Culture and Diplomacy written by Kazuo Yagami and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2018-02-16 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines how the United States and Japan—despite their sharp differences in cultural, historical, and geographical backgrounds—established a bilateral and clear linkage with each other by exploring their encounters with one another over more than one-and-a-half centuries with close focus on culture and diplomacy. The author desires that this examination contributes to an establishment of a better understanding of the relationship between the two nations, which aims to clarify stereotyped ideas and misunderstandings that from time to time can lead two nations to a confrontation against each other. Moreover, this study sheds new light on determining twenty-first century relations between the United States and Japan and putting an end to the nearly three-decades-long uncertainty in their relationship.

Cold War Democracy

Author : Jennifer M. Miller
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674240022
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Cold War Democracy by : Jennifer M. Miller

Download or read book Cold War Democracy written by Jennifer M. Miller and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the occupation American policymakers identified elections and education as the wellsprings of a democratic consciousness in Japan. But as the extent of Japan’s economic recovery became clear, they placed prosperity at the core of a revised vision for their new ally’s future, as Jennifer Miller shows in this fresh appraisal of the Cold War.

Superhuman Japan

Author : Marie Thorsten
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136446729
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (364 download)

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Book Synopsis Superhuman Japan by : Marie Thorsten

Download or read book Superhuman Japan written by Marie Thorsten and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the imaginative narratives that shaped the attitudes of Americans (and others) toward Japan. Focusing on cultural aspects of economic nationalism and US-Japan relations during the trade war Marie Thorsten uses examples from public discourse, film, documentaries, novels, acts of racism and comparison of international education assessments to examine the way in which Japan has been constituted in a global political gaze as an economic hegemon. In times of heightened rivalry, we often try to find superior "others" so that we can motivate ourselves against an imagined future of decline. During the Cold War, Americans and other nations in the West took advantage of being the underdog against the perceived superiority of the Soviet Union, especially by turning the Sputnik launch of 1957 into a lodestone for an educational renaissance. As postwar Japanese power became increasingly threatening, American policymakers again tried to fashion Japan into another "Sputnik" to motivate American people. This book explores 1980s "Bubble" Japan as a "Superhuman Other" in the consciousness of Americans, especially as reflected in popular culture and policy discourses. Making Japan into a Superhuman often resorted into the same stereotyping that invented Japan as a Subhuman. It was difficult for many to see that America, Japan and other nations were actually sharing the same global economic circumstances affecting attitudes toward knowledge and nation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese politics, International Relations and Japanese culture and society.

Modernization as Ideology

Author : Michael E. Latham
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 0807860794
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Modernization as Ideology by : Michael E. Latham

Download or read book Modernization as Ideology written by Michael E. Latham and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-06-19 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing new insight on the intellectual and cultural dimensions of the Cold War, Michael Latham reveals how social science theory helped shape American foreign policy during the Kennedy administration. He shows how, in the midst of America's protracted struggle to contain communism in the developing world, the concept of global modernization moved beyond its beginnings in academia to become a motivating ideology behind policy decisions. After tracing the rise of modernization theory in American social science, Latham analyzes the way its core assumptions influenced the Kennedy administration's Alliance for Progress with Latin America, the creation of the Peace Corps, and the strategic hamlet program in Vietnam. But as he demonstrates, modernizers went beyond insisting on the relevance of America's experience to the dilemmas faced by impoverished countries. Seeking to accelerate the movement of foreign societies toward a liberal, democratic, and capitalist modernity, Kennedy and his advisers also reiterated a much deeper sense of their own nation's vital strengths and essential benevolence. At the height of the Cold War, Latham argues, modernization recast older ideologies of Manifest Destiny and imperialism.

Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations

Author : Sadao Asada
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
ISBN 13 : 0826265693
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations by : Sadao Asada

Download or read book Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations written by Sadao Asada and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2007-06 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since Commodore Perry sailed into Uraga Channel, relations between the United States and Japan have been characterized by culture shock. Now a distinguished Japanese historian critically analyzes contemporary thought, public opinion, and behavior in the two countries over the course of the twentieth century, offering a binational perspective on culture shock as it has affected their relations. In these essays, Sadao Asada examines the historical interaction between these two countries from 1890 to 2006, focusing on naval strategy, transpacific racism, and the atomic bomb controversy. For each topic, he offers a rigorous analysis of both American and Japanese perceptions, showing how cultural relations and the interchange of ideas have been complex--and occasionally destructive. Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations contains insightful essays on the influence of Alfred Mahan on the Japanese navy and on American images of Japan during the 1920s. Other essays consider the progressive breakdown of relations between the two countries and the origins of the Pacific War from the viewpoint of the Japanese navy, then tackle the ultimate shock of the atomic bomb and Japan's surrender, tracing changing perceptions of the decision to use the bomb on both sides of the Pacific over the course of sixty years. In discussing these subjects, Asada draws on Japanese sources largely inaccessible to Western scholars to provide a host of eye-opening insights for non-Japanese readers. After studying in America for nine years and receiving degrees from both Carleton College and Yale University, Asada returned to Japan to face his own reverse culture shock. His insights raise important questions of why people on opposite sides of the Pacific see things differently and adapt their perceptions to different purposes. This book marks a major effort toward reconstructing and understanding the conflicted course of Japanese-American relations during the first half of the twentieth century.

Overcome by Modernity

Author : Harry D. Harootunian
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400823862
Total Pages : 475 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Overcome by Modernity by : Harry D. Harootunian

Download or read book Overcome by Modernity written by Harry D. Harootunian and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-28 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades between the two World Wars, Japan made a dramatic entry into the modern age, expanding its capital industries and urbanizing so quickly as to rival many long-standing Western industrial societies. How the Japanese made sense of the sudden transformation and the subsequent rise of mass culture is the focus of Harry Harootunian's fascinating inquiry into the problems of modernity. Here he examines the work of a generation of Japanese intellectuals who, like their European counterparts, saw modernity as a spectacle of ceaseless change that uprooted the dominant historical culture from its fixed values and substituted a culture based on fantasy and desire. Harootunian not only explains why the Japanese valued philosophical understandings of these events, often over sociological or empirical explanations, but also locates Japan's experience of modernity within a larger global process marked by both modernism and fascism. What caught the attention of Japanese thinkers was how the production of desire actually threatened historical culture. These intellectuals sought to "overcome" the materialism and consumerism associated with the West, particularly the United States. They proposed versions of a modernity rooted in cultural authenticity and aimed at infusing meaning into everyday life, whether through art, memory, or community. Harootunian traces these ideas in the works of Yanagita Kunio, Tosaka Jun, Gonda Yasunosuke, and Kon Wajiro, among others, and relates their arguments to those of such European writers as George Simmel, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Georges Bataille. Harootunian shows that Japanese and European intellectuals shared many of the same concerns, and also stresses that neither Japan's involvement with fascism nor its late entry into the capitalist, industrial scene should cause historians to view its experience of modernity as an oddity. The author argues that strains of fascism ran throughout most every country in Europe and in many ways resulted from modernizing trends in general. This book, written by a leading scholar of modern Japan, amounts to a major reinterpretation of the nature of Japan's modernity.