Smell of the Soil

Abstract

For long, the study of Japanese economic history of the prewar period has been colored by the dominant view of the modernisation economists who clearly held an anti-Marxist or a non-Marxist approach. One casualty of this approach has been the neglect of the rich micro level studies and data that are available on this period in the Japanese language. The standard view of agricultural development in Japan tends to ignore or gloss over the various struggles and difficulties the poor peasant went through. This article highlights the availability of diaries and other records left by the poor or the tenant farmers of the Meiji and Taisho periods. It shows how a study of these, along with the macro picture presented by the modernisation economists, completes the canvas and brings one closer to the realities of the prewar period. It raises questions about the image of a smooth and painless transition to modernisation that has been holding centre stage in the discourse about Japan for so long.