In 1945 Japan had to adjust very rapidly to sudden defeat, to the arrival of the American Occupation and to the encounter with the English language, together with a different outlook on many aspects of society and government. This scholarly book is based on in-depth interviews with people, now aged, who were school students at the time of the Occupation and who experienced first-hand this immense cultural change. The book considers the nature of the changing outlook, including democratization, the new role for the Japanese Emperor and all this represented for the place of tradition in Japanese life and the growing emphasis on individualism away from collectivism. It discusses the changing system of education itself, including new structures and new textbooks, and relates the feelings of the participants as they came to terms with defeat and the language and culture of the former enemy. Overall, the book provides a fascinating insight into a key period of Japanese history.

This scholarly book is based on in-depth interviews with people, now aged, who were school students at the time of the American Occupation and who experienced at first hand the immense cultural change that accompanied it.

This scholarly book is based on in-depth interviews with people, now aged, who were school students at the time of the American Occupation and who experienced at first hand the immense cultural change that accompanied it.

This book brings together discussions of leading aspects and repercussions of the Asia-Pacific War, which still have huge relevance today. From the development of war guilt to the vivid effect of art on bringing alive the realities of the war, it analyses a diversity of post-war issues in the Pacific Basin. Organised into five parts, the book begins by scrutinizing the conflicting attitudes towards Japanese post-war society and identifies the various legacies of the war. It also provides an examination of the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagaski, before studying contemporary civil society and analysing the way memories of the war have changed with time. Each of the chapters discusses the Japanese government’s inability to achieve reconciliation with its neighbours, despite the passage of over 70 years, and the denial of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army. Arguing that this policy of continuous denial has triggered the rise of civil movements in Japan, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese History and Japanese Studies in general.

How particular has Southeast Asia’s experience of educational development been, and has this led to an identifiably distinct Southeast Asian approach to the provision of education? Inquiry into these questions has significant consequences for our understanding of the current state of education in Southeast Asia and the challenges it has inherited. This book contributes to a better understanding of the experience of educational development in Southeast Asia by presenting a collection of micro-historical studies on the subject of education, policy and practice in the region from the emergence of modern education to the end of the twentieth century. The chapters fathom the extent to which contest over educational content in schools has occurred and establish the socio-cultural, political and economic bases upon which these contestations have taken place and the ways in which those forces have played out in the classrooms. In doing so, the book conveys a sense of the extent to which modern forms of education have been both facilitated and shaped by the region’s specific configurations; its unique demographic, religious, social, environmental, economic and political context. Conversely, they also provide examples of the sorts of obstacles that have prevented education making as full an impact on the region’s recent 'modern' transformation as might have been hoped or expected. This book will be of interest to academics in the field of Southeast Asian Studies, Asian Studies, education, nationalism, and history.

Presenting new approaches and results previously inaccessible in English, the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics provides an insight into the language and society of contemporary Japan from a fresh perspective. While it was once believed that Japan was a linguistically homogenous country, research over the past two decades has shown Japan to be a multilingual and sociolinguistically diversifying country. Building on this approach, the contributors to this handbook take this further, combining Japanese and western approaches alike and producing research which is relevant to twenty-first century societies. Organised into five parts, the sections covered include: The languages and language varieties of Japan. The multilingual ecology. Variation, style and interaction. Language problems and language planning. Research overviews. With contributions from across the field of Japanese sociolinguistics, this handbook will prove very useful for students and scholars of Japanese Studies, as well as sociolinguists more generally.

In the decade leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, at a time when Japan was expanding its influence in Asia, several Japanese institutions set about trying to convince Americans to support Tokyo’s plans and ambitions for China. This book seeks to analyze the original publications produced by these organizations and explores the methods used by the Japanese to influence American attitudes and policy. Four organizations active during the 1930s, the South Manchuria Railway Company, the America-Japan Society, the Foreign Affairs Association of Japan, and the Japan Pacific Association, were particularly instrumental in targeting the US. This book argues that they routinely used specific terminology to appeal to Americans, such as 'New Deal,' 'Manifest Destiny,' and 'Open Door.' Furthermore, the Japanese claimed that only they could meet the challenge of the growing communist threat, while their development programs would bring peace and prosperity to China. Nevertheless, American policy was not significantly altered by Japanese propaganda efforts, as documents from the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt reveal that the president continued to prepare the U.S. for war with Japan long before Pearl Harbour. Examining original Japanese English-language propaganda sources from the 1920s and 1930s, this book will be of huge interest to historians of Japan, China, the US and World War II more broadly.