With expert contributions from both the US and Japan, this book examines the legacies of the US Occupation on Japanese politics and society, and discusses the long-term impact of the Occupation on contemporary Japan. Focusing on two central themes – democracy and the interplay of US-initiated reforms and Japan's endogenous drive for democratization and social justice – the contributors address key questions: How did the US authorities and the Japanese people define democracy? To what extent did America impose their notions of democracy on Japan? How far did the Japanese pursue impulses toward reform, rooted in their own history and values? Which reforms were readily accepted and internalized, and which were ultimately subverted by the Japanese as impositions from outside? These questions are tackled by exploring the dynamics of the reform process from the three perspectives of innovation, continuity and compromise, specifically determining the effect that this period made to Japanese social, economic, and political understanding. Critically examines previously unexplored issues that influenced postwar Japan such as the effect of labour and healthcare legislation, textbook revision, and minority policy. Illuminating contemporary Japan, its achievements, its potential and its quandaries, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese-US relations, Japanese history and Japanese politics.

Religious freedom is a founding tenet of the United States, and it has frequently been used to justify policies towards other nations. Such was the case in 1945 when Americans occupied Japan following World War II. Though the Japanese constitution had guaranteed freedom of religion since 1889, the United States declared that protection faulty, and when the occupation ended in 1952, they claimed to have successfully replaced it with “real” religious freedom. Through a fresh analysis of pre-war Japanese law, Jolyon Baraka Thomas demonstrates that the occupiers’ triumphant narrative obscured salient Japanese political debates about religious freedom. Indeed, Thomas reveals that American occupiers also vehemently disagreed about the topic. By reconstructing these vibrant debates, Faking Liberties unsettles any notion of American authorship and imposition of religious freedom. Instead, Thomas shows that, during the Occupation, a dialogue about freedom of religion ensued that constructed a new global set of political norms that continue to form policies today.

The difficult mission of a regime change: Toshio Nishi gives an account of how America converted the Japanese mindset from war to peace following World War II.

Whilst most facets of the Occupation of Japan have attracted much scholarly debate in recent decades, this is not the case with reforms relating to public health. The few studies of this subject largely follow the celebratory account of US-inspired advances, strongly associated with Crawford Sams, the key figure in the Occupation charged with carrying them out. This book tests the validity of this dominant narrative, interrogating its chief claims, exploring the influences acting on it, and critically examining the reform’s broader significance for the Occupation and its legacies for both Japan and the US. The book argues that rather than presiding over a revolution in public health, the Public Health and Welfare Section, headed by Sams, recommended methods of epidemic disease control and prevention that were already established in Japan and were not the innovations that they were often claimed to be. Where high incidence of such endemic diseases as dysentery and tuberculosis reflected serious socio-economic problems or deficiencies in sanitary infrastructure, little was done in practice to tackle the fundamental problems of poor water quality, the continued use of night soil as fertilizer and pervasive malnutrition. Improvements in these areas followed the trajectory of recovery, growth and rising prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s. This book will be important reading for anyone studying Japanese History, the History of Medicine, Public Health in Asia and Asian Social Policy.

Ceramic figurines copying European styles-plastic, paper, and wooden household ornaments; dolls; lamps; vases and planters-all can be found with the import marks "Made in Occupied Japan" or the abbreviations "MIOJ" or just "OJ." These items were produced in Japan during the occupation of Japan by United States forces from 1945 to 1952. Today they are collected with enthusiasm.

Sanitized Sex analyzes the development of new forms of regulation concerning prostitution, venereal disease, and intimacy during the American occupation of Japan after the Second World War, focusing on the period between 1945 and 1952. It contributes to the cultural and social history of the occupation of Japan by investigating the intersections of ordering principles like race, class, gender, and sexuality. It also reveals how sex and its regulation were not marginal but key issues in postwar empire-building, U.S.-Japanese relations, and American and Japanese self-imagery. The regulation of sexual encounters between occupiers and occupied was closely linked to the disintegration of the Japanese empire and the rise of U.S. hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region during the Cold War era. Shedding new light on the configuration of postwar Japan, the process of decolonization, the postcolonial formation of the Asia-Pacific region, and the particularities of postwar U.S. imperialism, Sanitized Sex offers a reading of the intimacies of empires—defeated and victorious.