Each of the eight chapters deals with a specific topic, such as Shinto, Buddhism, the new religions, and Christianity; there is an introduction that outlines the subject to be considered followed by a series of readings.

Rocked by scandals and accusations that crucial decisions are made by non-elected officials, Japan has been called a democracy in name only. Is it?

Rocked by scandals and accusations that crucial decisions are made by non-elected officials, Japan has been called a democracy in name only. Is it?

Japan's legal and political system, enshrined in the 1947 Constitution and imposed on the Japanese people without their involvement during the U.S. occupation, is largely alien to its history and culture. Peter Herzog examines the effects of that foreign value system in this detailed and fascinating book, highlighting instances in such areas as the judiciary, human rights, minorities, religion and education, where abuse and exploitation of the law has taken on disturbing proportions at many levels of Japanese public life.

This book explains why no opposition party has been able to offer itself as a sustained challenger in Japan.

This book offers a grassroots perspective and holistic understanding of Japan's democratization process and what it means for the nation today.

Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan examines the political role played by working men and women in prewar Tokyo and offers a reinterpretation of the broader dynamics of Japan's prewar political history. Gordon argues that such phenomena as riots, labor disputes, and union organizing can best be understood as part of an early twentieth-century movement for "imperial democracy" shaped by the nineteenth-century drive to promote capitalism and build a modern nation and empire. When the propertied, educated leaders of this movement gained a share of power in the 1920s, they disagreed on how far to go toward incorporating working men and women into an expanded body politic. For their part, workers became ambivalent toward working within the imperial democratic system. In this context, the intense polarization of laborers and owners during the Depression helped ultimately to destroy the legitimacy of imperial democracy. Gordon suggests that the thought and behavior of Japanese workers both reflected and furthered the intense concern with popular participation and national power that has marked Japan's modern history. He points to a post-World War II legacy for imperial democracy in both the organization of the working class movement and the popular willingness to see GNP growth as an index of national glory. Importantly, Gordon shows how historians might reconsider the roles of tenant farmers, students, and female activists, for example, in the rise and transformation of imperial democracy.