In Defense of Prewar Japan: Promoting the Past in Studies of Crime during the Asia-Pacific War and Allied Occupation

Abstract

Abstract: While scholarship on the memories of the Asia-Pacific War is extensive, less information is available on the way individuals defined, imagined, or idealized the prewar period. This article examines studies relating war to civilian crime on the main islands, illustrating the role of the prewar period in assessments of wartime and postwar society. Contributing to positive views of prewar Japan detached from the "undesirable past" of the war, the authors of these studies anticipated some of the concerns, interpretations, and aspirations of postwar political and academic notables as well as postbubble social critics calling for the revival of so-called traditional values.