Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

Abstract

Part 1 Victor and vanquished: shattered lives - euphemistic surrender, unconditional surrender, quantifying coming home ... perhaps, displaced persons, despised veterans, stigmatized victims gifts from heaven - from above, demilitarization and democratization, imposing reform. Part 2 Transcending despair: Kyodatsu - exhaustion and despair - hunger and bamboo-shoot existence, enduring unendurable, sociologies of despair, child's play, inflation and economic sabotage cultures of defeat - servicing conquerors, butterflies, onlys and subversive women, black-market entrepreneurship, kasutori culture, decadence and authenticity, married life bridges of language - mocking brightness, apples and English, familiarity of new, rushing into print, bestsellers and posthumous heroes, heroines and victims. Part 3 Revolutions: neocolonial revolution - victors as viceroys, reevaluating monkey-men, experts and obedient herd embracing revolution - embracing commander, intellectuals and community of remorse, grass-roots engagements, institutionalizing reform, democratizing everyday language making revolution - lovable communists and radicalized workers, sea of red flags, unmaking revolution from below. Part 4 Democracies: imperial democracy - driving wedge -psychological warfare and son of heaven, purifying sovereign, letter, photograph and memorandum imperial democracy - descending partway from heaven - becoming bystanders, becoming human, cutting smoke with scissors imperial democracy -evading - confronting abdication, imperial tours and manifest human, one man's shattered god democracy - GHQ writes a new national charter - regendering a hermaphroditic creature, conundrums for men of Meiji, popular initiatives for a new national charter, SCAP takes over, GHQ's constitutional convention thinking about idealism and cultural imperialism democracy - American draft - the last opportunity for conservative group, translation marathon, unveiling draft constitution, water flows, river stays, Japanizing democracy, renouncing war ... perhaps, responding to a fait accompli censored democracy -policing new taboos - phantom bureaucracy, impermissible discourse, purifying victors, policing cinema, curbing political left. Part 5 Guilts: victor's justice, loser's justice -stern justice, showcase justice - Tokyo Tribunal, Tokyo and Nuremberg, victor's justice and its critics, race, power and powerlessness, loser's justice - naming names what do you tell dead when you lose? - a requiem for departed heroes, irrationality, science and responsibility for defeat, Buddhism as repentance and repentance as nationalism, responding to atrocity, remembering criminals, forgetting their crimes. Part 6 Reconstructions: engineering growth - oh, mistake