The Unfinished Business of Mourning: Maruyama Masao and Postwar Japan's Struggles with the Wartime Past

Abstract

The political scientist Maruyama Masao established himself as one of the most influential intellectuals in postwar Japan through his concise analyses of the wartime Japanese regime. In his argument the impeded development of Japanese modernity explains the failure of politics to prevent the military and fascist elements from controlling Japanese society. Published within a few years of Japan’s defeat, Maruyama’s writings on Japanese fascism were enthusiastically accepted—tohis great surprise—by thosewhowere seeking a critical purchase on the terrain of contemporary Japanese politics.1 His work was of such seminal importance that it still commands the attention of Japanese social scientists today. In 1995 a specialist on Japanese political thought expressed his unfailing faith in Maruyama’s scholarship: