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

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-032-55712-0
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 567 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia

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.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kimura, Masami

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Besondere Kriege und Kampagnen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction Part I Japan’s “Failed Modernization” and the Origins of Militarism 1. American Views of Japan and Rationales for Occupation Reform 2. Japanese Analyses of Problems with Japanese Democracy Part II Constitutional Reform as Modernization 3. Emperorship Reformed or Abolished? 4. Democratized Constitutional Monarchy as Middle Ground Part III Internationalist Visions for Post-Occupation Japan 5. America’s Cold War and Japan’s Place in a New Asian Order 6. Japan’s Diverging Internationalist Paths 7. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Masami Kimura is Lecturer at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Her primary research area is U.S.-Japan relations, and her publications include “American Asia Experts, Liberal Internationalism, and the Occupation of Japan: Transcending Cold War Politics and Historiography,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 21, no. 3 (2014).