New Studies in Modern Japan – serie

Queer Voices from Japan examines the wide range of queer voices in Japan, and the longevity that these minority communities have enjoyed in society. Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker bring together historical and contemporary narratives that contribute to the study of sexual identities in Japan. These essays trace the evolution of queer voices in Japan with analyses of the presence of homosexuality in the Japanese Imperial Army, the development of Japan's first gay bars, and same-sex experiences in the pre- and post-war periods. This book offers a variety of perspectives including a range of male-to-female and female-to-male transgender voices and experiences. The broad scope of this volume makes it an invaluable text for understanding the development of Japanese sex and gender categories in the twentieth century. Queer Voices from Japan is a compelling read that will appeal to those interested in Asian studies and human sexuality.

Queer Voices from Japan examines the wide range of queer voices in Japan, and the longevity that these minority communities have enjoyed in society. Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker bring together historical and contemporary narratives that contribute to the study of sexual identities in Japan. These essays trace the evolution of queer voices in Japan with analyses of the presence of homosexuality in the Japanese Imperial Army, the development of Japan's first gay bars, and same-sex experiences in the pre- and post-war periods. This book offers a variety of perspectives including a range of male-to-female and female-to-male transgender voices and experiences. The broad scope of this volume makes it an invaluable text for understanding the development of Japanese sex and gender categories in the twentieth century. Queer Voices from Japan is a compelling read that will appeal to those interested in Asian studies and human sexuality.

Sakaguchi Ango (1906-1955) was a writer who thrived on iconoclasm and agitation. He remains one of the most creative and stimulating thinkers of twentieth-century Japan. Ango was catapulted into the public consciousness in the months immediately following Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945. The energy and iconoclasm of his writings were matched by the outrageous and outsized antics of his life. Behind that life, and in the midst of those tumultuous times, Ango spoke with a cutting clarity. The essays and translations included in Literary Mischief probe some of the most volatile issues of culture, ideology, and philosophy of postwar Japan. Represented among the essayists are some of Japan's most important contemporary critics (e.g., Karatani K?jin and Ogino Anna). Many of Ango's works were produced during Japan's wars in China and the Pacific, a context in which words and ideas carried dire consequences for both writers and readers. All of the contributions to this volume consider this dimension of Ango's legacy, and it forms one of the thematic threads tying the volume together. The essays use Ango's writings to situate his accomplishment and contribute to our understanding of the potentials and limitations of radical thought in times of cultural nationalism, war, violence, and repression. This collection of essays and translations takes advantage of current interest in Sakaguchi Ango's work and makes available to the English-reading audience translations and critical work heretofore unavailable. As a result, the reader will come away with a coherent sense of Ango the individual and the writer, a critical apparatus for evaluating Ango, and access to new translations of key texts.

Critics typically regard Abe Kobo (1924-93) as writing against realism, due to his avant-garde aesthetics that challenged the Naturalist realism dominating the literary mainstream and the Socialist realism of the orthodox Left in postwar Japan. He considered his work thoroughly realist, however, and starting in the early 1950s in a series of avant-garde art and literary groups, he championed the possibility of a vital, contemporary realism that challenged the reader to question the "reality" represented in the text through increasingly self-conscious writing strategies. Through a reassessment of the texts in which he worked out his theory of realism, this study traces the development of his commitment to making "truth from a lie"—to fiction, drama, and reportage that openly display their artifice. Key argues that the reflexivity of Abe's texts, which lay bare their own processes of artificial construction in order to reflect how our everyday sense of reality is constructed and maintained, created a critical space for metatextual ideas that were not acknowledged by the literary establishment of his time and have yet to be recognized by critics today. Undergirding his theory and practice of realism was a critique of conventional documentary and of the classic detective story. The texts examined here expose the degree to which the documentarian and the detective are active fabricators of meaning rather than neutral observers of fact. By paying close attention to the tension between the documentary and the fictive in Abe's works, Key draws out the ethical implications of his documentary approach, arguing persuasively that the documentary qualities of his writing, such as its valorization of objectivity over psychologism and the realm of "concrete things" over abstraction are strategies for challenging the dominant assumptions about what constitutes good ethics and good art, as well as the relationship between these two spheres. Truth from a Lie explores the ways in which Abe put documentary and the de

The fifty months of the Siberian Intervention encompass the existential crisis which affected Japanese at virtually all levels when confronted with the new "world situation" left in the wake of the First World War. From elite politicians and military professionals, to public intellectuals and the families of servicemen in small garrison towns, the intervention was perceived as a test of how Japan might fit itself into the emerging postwar world order. Both domestically and internationally Japan's actions in Siberia were seen as critical proof of the nation's ability, depending on one's viewpoint, to embrace or to ride out the "trends of the times," the seeming triumph of constitutional democracy and Wilsonian internationalism. The course of the Siberian Intervention illuminates the struggle to cement "responsible" party cabinets at the heart of Japanese decision making, the high water mark of efforts to bring the Japanese military under civilian control, the attempt to fundamentally reshape Japanese continental policy, and the hopes of millions of Japanese that their voices be heard and their desires respected by the nation's leaders. The book attempts a broad examination of domestic politics, foreign policy, and military action by incorporating a wide array of voices through a detailed examination of public comment and discussion in journals and magazines, the major circulation daily newspapers of Tokyo and Osaka as well as those of smaller cities such as Nara, Mito, Oita, and Tsuruga.

The fifty months of the Siberian Intervention encompass the existential crisis which affected Japanese at virtually all levels when confronted with the new "world situation" left in the wake of the First World War. From elite politicians and military professionals, to public intellectuals and the families of servicemen in small garrison towns, the intervention was perceived as a test of how Japan might fit itself into the emerging postwar world order. Both domestically and internationally Japan's actions in Siberia were seen as critical proof of the nation's ability, depending on one's viewpoint, to embrace or to ride out the "trends of the times," the seeming triumph of constitutional democracy and Wilsonian internationalism. The course of the Siberian Intervention illuminates the struggle to cement "responsible" party cabinets at the heart of Japanese decision making, the high water mark of efforts to bring the Japanese military under civilian control, the attempt to fundamentally reshape Japanese continental policy, and the hopes of millions of Japanese that their voices be heard and their desires respected by the nation's leaders. The book attempts a broad examination of domestic politics, foreign policy, and military action by incorporating a wide array of voices through a detailed examination of public comment and discussion in journals and magazines, the major circulation daily newspapers of Tokyo and Osaka as well as those of smaller cities such as Nara, Mito, Oita, and Tsuruga.

Haiku Poetics in Twentieth Century Avant-Garde Poetry is the first study to examine the historical importance of haiku in theorizing a global poetic, tracing its spread from translations to practice, and following its permutations into diverse modernist avant-garde poetry. While Haiku Poetics is an investigation into the cultural borrowing of haiku, it also documents interpretation and transformation, as even the translators George Aston and Paul-Louis Couchoud moved beyond translation in the acquisition of haiku. The French translations focused on Yosa Buson's visual haiku, while the English prioritized Matsuo Bash?'s lyricism. After the first translations, haiku was disseminated throughout the world of poetry. This book argues that haiku grew out of a broad Japonisme and was on the cusp of the Modernist transformation of western art, and viewed over the course of the century, haiku would serve as the most important model for Modernist reformers.Through a hybrid of Buddhist and avant-garde theories, Haiku Poetics reveals that haiku and its permutations deploy concrete particulars in abrupt juxtaposition to engage the reader's intuitive apprehension, and suggest via images which must be shaped into allegories. The push to collapse poetry into the act of the perception of objects in the phenomenological world means that this poetry conjures from the unconscious to the physical, and in so doing, evokes greater creative processes. The poets swept up in this haiku revolution that this book examines include Ezra Pound, Paul Eluard, Fededrico García Lorca, Guillermo de Torre, José Juan Tablada, Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, among others.

Japan’s Backroom Politics is the translation of a classic study of the rough and tumble of Japanese politics and conservative party factions in the first two decades of postwar Japan. The original book, published in 1967, was written by the preeminent political writer at the time, Watanabe Tsuneo, who later became the controversial owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun. The book was written when a generational change was occurring in Japanese politics after several of the early party leaders had passed away, including his political mentor, Ono Bamboku. Comprising ten chapters, including a comprehensive preface on the author, Japan’s Backroom Politics discusses in great detail the history of and personalities within the near-dozen factions and sub-factions that existed at the time. He introduces the resiliency of factions within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, noting the role of money, influence, party presidency, and the chance at the premiership, among other factors, which subsequent commentators and scholars have elaborated on. Moreover, using extensive data and a penetrating analysis, Watanabe provides a historical as well as an international comparison of Japanese factions, making predictions about the future of Japanese politics.

In the wake of the disaster of 1945—as Japan was forced to remake itself from “empire” to “nation” in the face of an uncertain global situation—literature and literary criticism emerged as highly contested sites. Today, this remarkable period holds rich potential for opening new dialogue between scholars in Japan and North America as we rethink the historical and contemporary significance of such ongoing questions as the meaning of the American occupation both inside and outside of Japan, the shifting semiotics of “literature” and “politics,” and the origins of what would become crucial ideological weapons of the cultural Cold War.The volume consists of three interrelated sections: “Foregrounding the Cold War,” “Structures of Concealment: ‘Cultural Anxieties,’” and “Continuity and Discontinuity: Subjective Rupture and Dislocation.” One way or another, the essays address the process through which new “Japan” was created in the postwar present, which signified an attempt to criticize and reevaluate the past. Examining postwar discourse from various angles, the essays highlight the manner in which anxieties of the future were projected onto the construction of the past, which manifest in varying disavowals and structures of concealment.

In the wake of the disaster of 1945—as Japan was forced to remake itself from “empire” to “nation” in the face of an uncertain global situation—literature and literary criticism emerged as highly contested sites. Today, this remarkable period holds rich potential for opening new dialogue between scholars in Japan and North America as we rethink the historical and contemporary significance of such ongoing questions as the meaning of the American occupation both inside and outside of Japan, the shifting semiotics of “literature” and “politics,” and the origins of what would become crucial ideological weapons of the cultural Cold War.The volume consists of three interrelated sections: “Foregrounding the Cold War,” “Structures of Concealment: ‘Cultural Anxieties,’” and “Continuity and Discontinuity: Subjective Rupture and Dislocation.” One way or another, the essays address the process through which new “Japan” was created in the postwar present, which signified an attempt to criticize and reevaluate the past. Examining postwar discourse from various angles, the essays highlight the manner in which anxieties of the future were projected onto the construction of the past, which manifest in varying disavowals and structures of concealment.

In the wake of its defeat in World War II, as Japan was forced to remake itself from “empire” to “nation” in the face of an uncertain global situation, literature and literary criticism emerged as highly contested sites. Today, this remarkable period holds rich potential for opening new dialogue between scholars in Japan and North America as we rethink the historical and contemporary significance of a number of important issues, including the meaning of the American occupation both inside and outside of Japan, the shifting semiotics of “literature” and “politics,” and the origins of crucial ideological weapons of the cultural Cold War.This collection features works by Japanese intellectuals written in the immediate postwar period. These writings—many appearing in English for the first time—offer explorations into the social, political, and philosophical debates among Japanese literary elites that shaped the country’s literary culture in the aftermath of defeat.

Japan’s Backroom Politics is the translation of a classic study of the rough and tumble of Japanese politics and conservative party factions in the first two decades of postwar Japan. The original book, published in 1967, was written by the preeminent political writer at the time, Watanabe Tsuneo, who later became the controversial owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun. The book was written when a generational change was occurring in Japanese politics after several of the early party leaders had passed away, including his political mentor, Ono Bamboku. Comprising ten chapters, including a comprehensive preface on the author, Japan’s Backroom Politics discusses in great detail the history of and personalities within the near-dozen factions and sub-factions that existed at the time. He introduces the resiliency of factions within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, noting the role of money, influence, party presidency, and the chance at the premiership, among other factors, which subsequent commentators and scholars have elaborated on. Moreover, using extensive data and a penetrating analysis, Watanabe provides a historical as well as an international comparison of Japanese factions, making predictions about the future of Japanese politics.

The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Asia-Pacific region greatly surpasses the world average. When the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is better realized, then the world’s largest free trade zone will be firmly established. It seems that this region has a very rosy outlook indeed; however, this region also faces a large number of serious problems such as: atomic energy in Japan, conflicts about East Asian regional integration, the decline of the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA), and the TPP’s possible impact on the Japanese universal health insurance system. We now face a possible Sino-Japanese military conflict concerning the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyutai Islands). In short, the Asia-Pacific region has both a rosy future and the potential influence from unstable and dangerous elements at work within the region at present. The main purpose of this book is to analyze historical development, whilst looking at the contemporary situation of Japan from interdisciplinary perspectives. This book asks three major questions: (1) Is this really globalization? (2) What are Japan’s relations with other Asian countries? (3) Do U.S.-Japan relations still matter?Fourteen leading scholars in their fields answer these questions from interdisciplinary perspectives.

The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Asia-Pacific region greatly surpasses the world average. When the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is better realized, then the world’s largest free trade zone will be firmly established. It seems that this region has a very rosy outlook indeed; however, this region also faces a large number of serious problems such as: atomic energy in Japan, conflicts about East Asian regional integration, the decline of the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA), and the TPP’s possible impact on the Japanese universal health insurance system. We now face a possible Sino-Japanese military conflict concerning the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyutai Islands). In short, the Asia-Pacific region has both a rosy future and the potential influence from unstable and dangerous elements at work within the region at present. The main purpose of this book is to analyze historical development, whilst looking at the contemporary situation of Japan from interdisciplinary perspectives. This book asks three major questions: (1) Is this really globalization? (2) What are Japan’s relations with other Asian countries? (3) Do U.S.-Japan relations still matter?Fourteen leading scholars in their fields answer these questions from interdisciplinary perspectives.

This book introduces a multilayered approach to the study of democracy, combining specific knowledge of Japan with theoretical insights from the literature on democratization. It examines different aspects of Japanese democracy—historical, institutional, and sociocultural—to provide a conscious understanding of the nature and practice of democracy, both in Japan and beyond. The book's chapters give testimony to the dynamic nature and continuity of Japanese democracy and analyze its strengths and weaknesses. The central argument of this book is that Japan’s democratization should be seen as a multilayered experience shaped by the gradual process of absorbing democratic ideas, forming democratic institutions, and practicing democratic behaviors and rituals at various levels of society. As the case of Japan shows, democracy is neither a structured formula nor only a set of democratic laws and institutions, but a continuous, gradual process.

The acceleration of media culture globalization processes cross-fertilization and people’s exchange beyond the confinement of national borders, but not all of them lead to substantial transformations of national identity or foster cosmopolitan outlook in terms of openness, togetherness and dialogue within and beyond the national borders. Whilst national borders continue to become more and more porous, the measures of border control are constantly reformulated to tame disordered flows and tightly re-demarcate the borders—materially, physically, symbolically and imaginatively. Border crossing does not necessarily bring about the transgression of borders. Transgression of borders requires one to fundamentally question how borders in the existing form have been socio-historically constructed and also seek to displace their exclusionary power that unevenly divide “us” and “them” and “here” and “there.” This book considers how media culture and the management of people’s border crossing movement combine with Japan's cultural diversity to institute the creation of national cultural borders in Japanese millennials. Critical analysis of this development is a pressing matter if we are to seriously consider how to make Japan’s national cultural borders more inclusive and dialogic.

The acceleration of media culture globalization processes cross-fertilization and people’s exchange beyond the confinement of national borders, but not all of them lead to substantial transformations of national identity or foster cosmopolitan outlook in terms of openness, togetherness and dialogue within and beyond the national borders. Whilst national borders continue to become more and more porous, the measures of border control are constantly reformulated to tame disordered flows and tightly re-demarcate the borders—materially, physically, symbolically and imaginatively. Border crossing does not necessarily bring about the transgression of borders. Transgression of borders requires one to fundamentally question how borders in the existing form have been socio-historically constructed and also seek to displace their exclusionary power that unevenly divide “us” and “them” and “here” and “there.” This book considers how media culture and the management of people’s border crossing movement combine with Japan's cultural diversity to institute the creation of national cultural borders in Japanese millennials. Critical analysis of this development is a pressing matter if we are to seriously consider how to make Japan’s national cultural borders more inclusive and dialogic.

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production analyzes the complex conversations taking place in texts of all sorts traveling between Africans, African Diasporas, and Japanese across disciplinary, geographic, racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural borders. Be it focused on the make-up of the blackface ganguro or the haiku of Richard Wright, Rastafari communities in Japan or the black enka singer Jero, the volume turns its attention away from questions of representation to ones concerning the generative aspects of transcultural production. The contributors are interested primarily in texts in motion—the contradictory motion within texts, the traveling of texts, and the action that such kinetic energy inspires in readers, viewers, listeners, and travelers. As our texts travel and travail, the originary nodal points that anchor them to set significations loosen and are transformed; the essays trace how, in the process of traveling, the bodies and subjectivities of those working to reimagine the text(s) in new sites moderate, accommodate, and transfigure both the texts and themselves.

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production analyzes the complex conversations taking place in texts of all sorts traveling between Africans, African Diasporas, and Japanese across disciplinary, geographic, racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural borders. Be it focused on the make-up of the blackface ganguro or the haiku of Richard Wright, Rastafari communities in Japan or the black enka singer Jero, the volume turns its attention away from questions of representation to ones concerning the generative aspects of transcultural production. The contributors are interested primarily in texts in motion—the contradictory motion within texts, the traveling of texts, and the action that such kinetic energy inspires in readers, viewers, listeners, and travelers. As our texts travel and travail, the originary nodal points that anchor them to set significations loosen and are transformed; the essays trace how, in the process of traveling, the bodies and subjectivities of those working to reimagine the text(s) in new sites moderate, accommodate, and transfigure both the texts and themselves.

Combining work and family remains a major challenge for married women in contemporary Japan, and it’s not uncommon for them to quit working when starting a family. Single mothers, by contrast, almost always work, regardless of the age of their children. Despite their eagerness to support themselves and their children through employment, their average income remains low and many live on a household budget close to the poverty line. This book examines how the difficult living conditions facing single mothers in Japan highlight not only the challenges they face in earning a family wage and managing the work-family balance, but also reveals the class dimensions of family life in contemporary Japan.The need to make ends meet with few resources means that mothers may find it difficult to uphold the lifestyle they may consider as most appropriate for the upbringing of their children, and that they may have to choose between their presence at home, in line with the ideal of the middle-class housewife and mother, or devoting more time to earning an income that can pay for a good education. Social class, in this case, is not just a matter of education, occupation, or income, but is also expressed by mothers’ approaches to their children’s’ upbringing and future opportunities in education and employment. Based on life history interviews with single mothers, this study examines the gendered meanings of social class and social achievement and the role of maternal practices in shaping their children’s future life trajectories.

Combining work and family remains a major challenge for married women in contemporary Japan, and it’s not uncommon for them to quit working when starting a family. Single mothers, by contrast, almost always work, regardless of the age of their children. Despite their eagerness to support themselves and their children through employment, their average income remains low and many live on a household budget close to the poverty line. This book examines how the difficult living conditions facing single mothers in Japan highlight not only the challenges they face in earning a family wage and managing the work-family balance, but also reveals the class dimensions of family life in contemporary Japan.The need to make ends meet with few resources means that mothers may find it difficult to uphold the lifestyle they may consider as most appropriate for the upbringing of their children, and that they may have to choose between their presence at home, in line with the ideal of the middle-class housewife and mother, or devoting more time to earning an income that can pay for a good education. Social class, in this case, is not just a matter of education, occupation, or income, but is also expressed by mothers’ approaches to their children’s’ upbringing and future opportunities in education and employment. Based on life history interviews with single mothers, this study examines the gendered meanings of social class and social achievement and the role of maternal practices in shaping their children’s future life trajectories.

Creating Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015 is a timely contribution to postwar Japan security studies. It is the first comprehensive account of Japan’s post-1945 army, including a comprehensive institutional history, together with the evolution of roles and missions and the adoption of successive professional identities. The organizational history is embedded within a thorough examination of Japan’s own defense policy, as well as of America’s policy of alliance with Japan. The book examines and challenges assumptions about the drafting and adoption of the War Renunciation clause of Japan’s postwar Peace Constitution, Article 9, which uniquely not only renounces war, but the arms to wage war. Thus Japan’s army is not called an army, but the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The work also examines the place of an army and soldiers in the formation of Japan’s national identity after its last devastating war, and explores the impact of constitutional, legal and policy restrictions, as well as the power of the legacy of the still-largely vilified Imperial Japanese Army on GSDF members who seek to serve because “there are people we want to protect.” The study is rounded by an examination of the place of soldiers in Japan’s popular culture, focused on movies, manga and anime, assessing the impact on the GSDF of a public imagination that most often ignores or villainizes soldiers, though ending with a note that some positive images of soldiers and of the GSDF members themselves have started to appear in the last few years. The book’s author, a retired U.S. Army soldier who spent more than twenty years working, studying and training with the GSDF, offers a broad-ranging exploration of a unique organization. This work is extensively researched, using English and Japanese sources, and will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese security studies, alliance studies, and military imagery in Japanese pop culture, as well as to students of military history, international security, international relations, and cultural identity.

Creating Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015 is a timely contribution to postwar Japan security studies. It is the first comprehensive account of Japan’s post-1945 army, including a comprehensive institutional history, together with the evolution of roles and missions and the adoption of successive professional identities. The organizational history is embedded within a thorough examination of Japan’s own defense policy, as well as of America’s policy of alliance with Japan. The book examines and challenges assumptions about the drafting and adoption of the War Renunciation clause of Japan’s postwar Peace Constitution, Article 9, which uniquely not only renounces war, but the arms to wage war. Thus Japan’s army is not called an army, but the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The work also examines the place of an army and soldiers in the formation of Japan’s national identity after its last devastating war, and explores the impact of constitutional, legal and policy restrictions, as well as the power of the legacy of the still-largely vilified Imperial Japanese Army on GSDF members who seek to serve because “there are people we want to protect.” The study is rounded by an examination of the place of soldiers in Japan’s popular culture, focused on movies, manga and anime, assessing the impact on the GSDF of a public imagination that most often ignores or villainizes soldiers, though ending with a note that some positive images of soldiers and of the GSDF members themselves have started to appear in the last few years. The book’s author, a retired U.S. Army soldier who spent more than twenty years working, studying and training with the GSDF, offers a broad-ranging exploration of a unique organization. This work is extensively researched, using English and Japanese sources, and will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese security studies, alliance studies, and military imagery in Japanese pop culture, as well as to students of military history, international security, international relations, and cultural identity.

The authors argue that with the election of the Abe Government in December 2012, Japanese politics has entered a radically new phase they describe as the “2012 Political System.” The system began with the return to power of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), after three years in opposition, but in a much stronger electoral position than previous LDP-based administrations in earlier decades. Moreover, with the decline of previously endemic intra-party factionalism, the LDP has united around an essentially nationalist agenda never absent from the party’s ranks, but in the past was generally blocked, or modified, by factions of more liberal persuasion. Opposition weakness following the severe defeat of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration in 2012 has also enabled the Abe Government to establish a political stability largely lacking since the 1990s.The first four chapters deal with Japanese political development since 1945 and factors leading to the emergence of Abe Shinzo as Prime Minister in 2012. Chapter 5 examines the Abe Government’s flagship economic policy, dubbed “Abenomics.” The authors then analyse four highly controversial objectives promoted by the Abe Government: revision of the 1947 ‘Peace Constitution’; the introduction of a Secrecy Law; historical revision, national identity and issues of war apology; and revised constitutional interpretation permitting collective defence. In the final three chapters they turn to foreign policy, first examining relations with China, Russia and the two Koreas, second Japan and the wider world, including public diplomacy, economic relations and overseas development aid, and finally, the vexed question of how far Japanese policies are as reactive to foreign pressure. In the Conclusion, the authors ask how far right wing trends in Japan exhibit common causality with shifts to the right in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. They argue that although in Japan immigration has been a relatively minor factor, economic stagnation, demographic decline, a sense of regional insecurity in the face of challenges from China and North Korea, and widening gaps in life chances, bear comparison with trends elsewhere. Nevertheless, they maintain that “[a] more sane regional future may be possible in East Asia.”

The authors argue that with the election of the Abe Government in December 2012, Japanese politics has entered a radically new phase they describe as the “2012 Political System.” The system began with the return to power of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), after three years in opposition, but in a much stronger electoral position than previous LDP-based administrations in earlier decades. Moreover, with the decline of previously endemic intra-party factionalism, the LDP has united around an essentially nationalist agenda never absent from the party’s ranks, but in the past was generally blocked, or modified, by factions of more liberal persuasion. Opposition weakness following the severe defeat of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration in 2012 has also enabled the Abe Government to establish a political stability largely lacking since the 1990s.The first four chapters deal with Japanese political development since 1945 and factors leading to the emergence of Abe Shinzo as Prime Minister in 2012. Chapter 5 examines the Abe Government’s flagship economic policy, dubbed “Abenomics.” The authors then analyse four highly controversial objectives promoted by the Abe Government: revision of the 1947 ‘Peace Constitution’; the introduction of a Secrecy Law; historical revision, national identity and issues of war apology; and revised constitutional interpretation permitting collective defence. In the final three chapters they turn to foreign policy, first examining relations with China, Russia and the two Koreas, second Japan and the wider world, including public diplomacy, economic relations and overseas development aid, and finally, the vexed question of how far Japanese policies are as reactive to foreign pressure. In the Conclusion, the authors ask how far right wing trends in Japan exhibit common causality with shifts to the right in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. They argue that although in Japan immigration has been a relatively minor factor, economic stagnation, demographic decline, a sense of regional insecurity in the face of challenges from China and North Korea, and widening gaps in life chances, bear comparison with trends elsewhere. Nevertheless, they maintain that “[a] more sane regional future may be possible in East Asia.”

In the winter of 1913, a small crowd gathered on the streets of a famous red-light district on the outskirts of Tokyo. Curious patrons, journalists, and onlookers formed a steady procession to see the prostitute, Wada Yoshiko, and celebrate the release of her new book. A Prostitute’s Tale divulged inner secrets about her co-workers, patrons, and difficult confinement in a government-run syphilis hospital. According to the press, the author was a literary prostitute, a new expert, and a compelling version of Japan’s new woman. Soon widely acclaimed, her literary work heralded a growing public desire for inside knowledge about the lived experiences of pleasure workers. Wada’s success was the product of more than half-a-century of high-stakes conversations about the future of Japan. Her fame as an author simultaneously challenged and complemented previous discussions about the role of the female prostitute in the modern nation-state. However, while her perspective was new, the information she shared invoked key themes that had proliferated about her in prior decades. Since the 1850s, when Japan was forced to sign the “unequal” commercial treaties with the Western imperial powers, wide-ranging debates had taken place that linked the prostitute to national security and international prestige in imperative new ways.Imagining Prostitution in Modern Japan traces the symbol of the prostitute as a project of nation- and empire-building from the 1850s to 1913, ending one year after the death of the Meiji emperor, and coincidentally, the year of Wada’s publication. It untangles how ideas about pleasure work intersected with Japan’s transformation into a modern nation according to Western models. It asserts that the figure of the prostitute was a powerful symbolic resource that wide-ranging interest groups deployed, variously, to negotiate and define shifting distinctions of status, identity, and power. Each of the debates about the prostitute was in turn central to and mutually constitutive of the emergent social order in Meiji Japan.

In the winter of 1913, a small crowd gathered on the streets of a famous red-light district on the outskirts of Tokyo. Curious patrons, journalists, and onlookers formed a steady procession to see the prostitute, Wada Yoshiko, and celebrate the release of her new book. A Prostitute’s Tale divulged inner secrets about her co-workers, patrons, and difficult confinement in a government-run syphilis hospital. According to the press, the author was a literary prostitute, a new expert, and a compelling version of Japan’s new woman. Soon widely acclaimed, her literary work heralded a growing public desire for inside knowledge about the lived experiences of pleasure workers. Wada’s success was the product of more than half-a-century of high-stakes conversations about the future of Japan. Her fame as an author simultaneously challenged and complemented previous discussions about the role of the female prostitute in the modern nation-state. However, while her perspective was new, the information she shared invoked key themes that had proliferated about her in prior decades. Since the 1850s, when Japan was forced to sign the “unequal” commercial treaties with the Western imperial powers, wide-ranging debates had taken place that linked the prostitute to national security and international prestige in imperative new ways.Imagining Prostitution in Modern Japan traces the symbol of the prostitute as a project of nation- and empire-building from the 1850s to 1913, ending one year after the death of the Meiji emperor, and coincidentally, the year of Wada’s publication. It untangles how ideas about pleasure work intersected with Japan’s transformation into a modern nation according to Western models. It asserts that the figure of the prostitute was a powerful symbolic resource that wide-ranging interest groups deployed, variously, to negotiate and define shifting distinctions of status, identity, and power. Each of the debates about the prostitute was in turn central to and mutually constitutive of the emergent social order in Meiji Japan.

In its diversity of perspectives, The Unfinished Atomic Bomb: Shadows and Reflections is testament to the ways in which contemplations of the A-bomb are endlessly shifting, rarely fixed on the same point or perspective. The compilation of this book is significant in this regard, offering Japanese, American, Australian, and European perspectives. In doing so, the essays here represent a complex series of interpretations of the bombing of Hiroshima, and its implications both for history, and for the present day. From Kuznick’s extensive biographical account of the Hiroshima bomb pilot, Paul Tibbets, and contentious questions about the moral and strategic efficacy of dropping the A-bomb and how that has resonated through time, to Jacobs’ reflections on the different ways in which Hiroshima and its memorialization are experienced today, each chapter considers how this moment in time emerges, persistently, in public and cultural consciousness. The discussions here are often difficult, sometimes controversial, and at times oppositional, reflecting the characteristics of A-bomb scholarship more broadly. The aim is to explore the various ways in which Hiroshima is remembered, but also to consider the ongoing legacy and impact of atomic warfare, the reverberations of which remain powerfully felt.

In its diversity of perspectives, The Unfinished Atomic Bomb: Shadows and Reflections is testament to the ways in which contemplations of the A-bomb are endlessly shifting, rarely fixed on the same point or perspective. The compilation of this book is significant in this regard, offering Japanese, American, Australian, and European perspectives. In doing so, the essays here represent a complex series of interpretations of the bombing of Hiroshima, and its implications both for history, and for the present day. From Kuznick’s extensive biographical account of the Hiroshima bomb pilot, Paul Tibbets, and contentious questions about the moral and strategic efficacy of dropping the A-bomb and how that has resonated through time, to Jacobs’ reflections on the different ways in which Hiroshima and its memorialization are experienced today, each chapter considers how this moment in time emerges, persistently, in public and cultural consciousness. The discussions here are often difficult, sometimes controversial, and at times oppositional, reflecting the characteristics of A-bomb scholarship more broadly. The aim is to explore the various ways in which Hiroshima is remembered, but also to consider the ongoing legacy and impact of atomic warfare, the reverberations of which remain powerfully felt.