The ‘High Treason Incident’ rocked Japanese society between 1910 and 1911, when police discovered that a group of anarchists and socialists were plotting to assassinate the Emperor Meiji. Following a trial held in camera, twelve of the so-called conspirators were hanged, but while the executions officially brought an end to the incident, they were only the initial outcome as the state became increasingly paranoid about national ideological cohesion. In response it deployed an array of new technologies of integration and surveillance, and the subsequent repression affected not only political movements, but the whole cultural sphere. This book shows the far reaching impact of the high treason incident for Japanese politics and society, and the subsequent course of Japanese history. Taking an interdisciplinary and global approach, it demonstrates how the incident transformed modern Japan in numerous and unexpected ways, and sheds light on the response of authoritarian states to radical democratic opposition movements elsewhere. The contributors examine the effects of the incident on Japanese history, literature, politics and society, as well as its points of intersection with broader questions of anarchism, colonialism, gender and governmentality, to underline its historical and contemporary significance. With chapters by leading Western and Japanese scholars, and drawing on newly available primary sources, this book is a timely and relevant study that will be of great interest to students and scholars working in the fields of Japanese history, Japanese politics, Japanese studies, as well as those interested in the history of social movements.

The ‘High Treason Incident’ rocked Japanese society between 1910 and 1911, when police discovered that a group of anarchists and socialists were plotting to assassinate the Emperor Meiji. Following a trial held in camera, twelve of the so-called conspirators were hanged, but while the executions officially brought an end to the incident, they were only the initial outcome as the state became increasingly paranoid about national ideological cohesion. In response it deployed an array of new technologies of integration and surveillance, and the subsequent repression affected not only political movements, but the whole cultural sphere. This book shows the far reaching impact of the high treason incident for Japanese politics and society, and the subsequent course of Japanese history. Taking an interdisciplinary and global approach, it demonstrates how the incident transformed modern Japan in numerous and unexpected ways, and sheds light on the response of authoritarian states to radical democratic opposition movements elsewhere. The contributors examine the effects of the incident on Japanese history, literature, politics and society, as well as its points of intersection with broader questions of anarchism, colonialism, gender and governmentality, to underline its historical and contemporary significance. With chapters by leading Western and Japanese scholars, and drawing on newly available primary sources, this book is a timely and relevant study that will be of great interest to students and scholars working in the fields of Japanese history, Japanese politics, Japanese studies, as well as those interested in the history of social movements.

This extended monograph examines the work of the radical journalist Kotoku Shusui and Japan’s anti-imperialist movement of the early twentieth century. It includes the first English translation of Imperialism (Teikokushugi), Kotoku’s classic 1901 work. Kotoku Shusui was a Japanese socialist, anarchist, and critic of Japan’s imperial expansionism who was executed in 1911 for his alleged participation in a plot to kill the emperor. His Imperialism was one of the first systematic criticisms of imperialism published anywhere in the world. In this seminal text, Kotoku condemned global imperialism as the commandeering of politics by national elites and denounced patriotism and militarism as the principal causes of imperialism. In addition to translating Imperialism, Robert Tierney offers an in-depth study of Kotoku’s text and of the early anti-imperialist movement he led. Tierney places Kotoku’s book within the broader context of early twentieth-century debates on the nature and causes of imperialism. He also presents a detailed account of the different stages of the Japanese anti-imperialist movement. Monster of the Twentieth Century constitutes a major contribution to the intellectual history of modern Japan and to the comparative study of critiques of capitalism and colonialism.

In this book, for the first time, we can hear the startling, moving voices of adventurous and rebellious Japanese women as they eloquently challenged the social repression of prewar Japan. The extraordinary women whose memoirs, recollections, and essays are presented here constitute a strong current in the history of modern Japanese life from the 1880s to the outbreak of the Pacific War.

Ideology played a momentous role in modern Japanese history. Not only did the elite of imperial Japan (1890-1945) work hard to influence the people to "yield as the grasses before the wind," but historians of modern Japan later identified these efforts as one of the underlying pathologies of World War II. Available for the first time in paperback, this study examines how this ideology evolved. Carol Gluck argues that the process of formulating and communicating new national values was less consistent than is usually supposed. By immersing the reader in the talk and thought of the late Meiji period, Professor Gluck recreates the diversity of ideological discourse experienced by Japanese of the time. The result is a new interpretation of the views of politics and the nation in imperial Japan.

Steve Shone’s Women of Liberty explores the many overlaps between ten radical, feminist, and anarchist thinkers: Tennie C. Claflin, Noe Itō, Louise Michel, Rose Pesotta, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mollie Steimer, Lois Waisbrooker, Mercy Otis Warren, and Victoria C. Woodhull. In an age of great and understandable dissatisfaction with governments around the world, Shone illuminates both the lost wisdom of the anarchists and the considerable contribution of women to intellectual thought, influences that are currently missing from many classes documenting the history of political theory.

Since the late-19th century, Japan has made remarkable strides in industrialization. Beginning with the economic vision of Miura Baien in the 18th century, and employing a detailed comparison with the West, this book delves into the economic thought of the scholars who played a pivotal role in Japan’s modernization process. The author takes Fukuzawa Yukichi’s theory of ‘civilization’ as the standard measure of Japan’s modernization and compares it with differing visions from various critics whose research focused on rural poverty and social problems, such as Maeda Masana, early socialists, Yanagita Kunio and Kawakami Hajime. Further, the book explores new liberalism (Ishibashi Tanzan, Fukuda Tokuzo) and Marxism (Yamada Moritaro, Uno Kozo) in the 1920s and 1930s. After discussing the dilemmas faced by economists during wartime (Takata Yasuma, Ryu Shintaro, Shibata Kei), the author concludes this intellectual history with the country’s post-1945 democratic reforms and their early demise. This book is valuable reading for students and researchers of Japan’s intellectual history. However, due to the book’s comparative perspective, as well as the universality of the modernization experience, it will also appeal to students and researchers of the history of economic thought and modern intellectual history.