Grassroots Fascism

The War Experience of the Japanese People
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-231-16569-3
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 360 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 154 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 501 g

Reihe: Weatherhead Books on Asia

Grassroots Fascism profiles the Asia Pacific War (1937;1945) the most important though least understood experience of Japan's modern history through the lens of ordinary Japanese life. Moving deftly from the struggles of the home front to the occupied territories to the ravages of the front line, the book offers rare insights into popular experiences from the war's troubled beginnings through Japan's disastrous defeat in 1945 and the new beginning it heralded.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki mobilizes diaries, letters, memoirs, and government documents to portray the ambivalent position of ordinary Japanese as both wartime victims and active participants. He also provides penetrating accounts of the war experiences of Japan's minorities and imperial subjects, including Koreans and Taiwanese. His book challenges the idea that the Japanese people operated as a mere conduit for the military during the war, passively accepting an imperial ideology imposed upon them by the political elite. Viewed from the bottom up, wartime Japan unfolds as a complex modern mass society, with a corresponding variety of popular roles and agendas.

In chronicling the diversity of wartime Japanese social experience, Yoshimi's account elevates our understanding of "Japanese Fascism." In its relation of World War II to the evolution and destruction of empire, it makes a fresh contribution to the global history of the war. Ethan Mark's translation supplements the Japanese original with explanatory notes and an in-depth introduction that situates the work within Japanese studies and global history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yoshiaki, Yoshimi

Weitere Mitwirkende

Mark, Ethan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Besondere Kriege und Kampagnen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Geschichtspolitik, Erinnerungskultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Oral History (Zeitzeugen)
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Translator's Introduction: The People in the War1. From Democracy to Fascism2. Grassroots Fascism3. The Asian War4. Democracy from the BattlefieldPostscriptNotesIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Yoshimi Yoshiaki is professor of modern Japanese history at Chuo University in Tokyo and is a founding member of the Center for Research and Documentation on Japan's War Responsibility.

Ethan Mark is University Lecturer in Modern Japanese History at Leiden University, Netherlands.