Examines Japan's war generation--Japanese men and women who survived World War Two and rebuilt their lives, into the 21st century, from memories of that conflict Since John Hersey's Hiroshima--the classic account, published in 1946, of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of that city--very few books have examined the meaning and impact of World War II through the eyes of Japanese men and women who survived that conflict. Tattered Kimonos in Japan does just that: It is an intimate journey into contemporary Japan from the perspective of the generation of Japanese soldiers and civilians who survived World War II, by a writer whose American father and Japanese father-in-law fought on opposite sides of the conflict. The author, a former NPR senior editor, is Jewish, and he approaches the subject with the sensibilities of having grown up in a community of Holocaust survivors. Mindful of the power of victimhood, memory, and shared suffering, he travels across Japan, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, meeting a compelling group of men and women whose lives, even now, are defined by the trauma of war, and by lingering questions of responsibility and repentance for Japan's wartime aggression. The image of a tattered kimono from Hiroshima is the thread that drives the narrative arc of this emotional story about a writer's encounter with history, inside the Japan of his father's generation, on the other side of his father's war. This is a book about history with elements of family memoir. It offers a fresh and truly unique perspective for readers interested in World War II, Japan, or Judaica; readers seeking cross-cultural journeys; and readers intrigued by Japanese culture, particularly the kimono.

What is the kimono? Everyday garment? Art object? Symbol of Japan? As this book shows, the kimono has served all of these roles, its meaning changing across time and with the perspective of the wearer or viewer. Kimono: A Modern History begins by exposing the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century foundations of the modern kimono fashion industry. It explores the crossover between ‘art’ and ‘fashion’ in this period at the hands of famous Japanese painters who worked with clothing pattern books and painted directly onto garments. With Japan’s exposure to Western fashion in the nineteenth century, and Westerners’ exposure to Japanese modes of dress and design, the kimono took on new associations and came to symbolize an exotic culture and an alluring female form. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the kimono industry was sustained through government support. The line between fashion and art became blurred as kimonos produced by famous designers were collected for their beauty and displayed in museums, rather than being worn as clothing. Today, the kimono has once again taken on new dimensions, as the Internet and social media proliferate images of the kimono as a versatile garment to be integrated into a range of individual styles. Kimono: A Modern History, the inspiration for a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,not only tells the story of a distinctive garment’s ever-changing functions and image, but provides a novel perspective on Japan’s modernization and encounter with the West.

The book’s structure blends history and geography. A good world atlas or a world historical atlas will be helpful in the reading. The historical arrangement of contents has six Parts” Classical, Mediaeval, Early Modern (Lands), Early Modern (Ideas), Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Twentieth Century. Although this sequence of periods and categories fits Western/European history best, it is also reasonably appropriate for Central Asia, India, and China. For other regions it is more arbitrary, and Classical and Mediaeval periods are merged. Because the Parts overlap and involve imprecise categories, in the List of Contents and Summaries no attempt is made to give dates for their beginning and end.

This book is an eyewitness report of what happened in Japan and Korea during the Occupation years from December 1945 to May 1948. It is also meant to be some other things. It is the story of that extraordinary figure General Douglas MacArthur, and the men around him. It is the story of the way American foreign polity operated in one segment of the globe and of the plot and counterplot that went on behind the Japanese throne in the years of war and of the subsequent conspiracy to thwart the Allied purposes. It is the story of the common people in two Oriental lands. It is, finally, the record of the author's education, and not a few readers will find it controversial. But it is an absorbing book nonetheless, and the years that have passed since its first publication have not diminished its value as the chronicle of a highly observant reporter. It is indeed an intriguing panorama that Gayn presents, and whether the reader agrees with him in all of his observations, he can hardly accuse him of being unexciting.

ISBN 9042003375 (paperback) NLG 55.00 From the contents: Beckettissimo: Beckett virtuose de l'echo: 'fin de partie' et l'essence du bouddhisme (Emmanuel Jacquart).- Staging of institutional tensions in Beckett's plays (Juergen Siess).- Postmodern staging of 'waiting for Godot' (Mariko Hori Tanaka).- Staging himself, or Beckett's late style in the theatre (S.E. Gontarski). figure.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.