Psychological Makeup Research Articles

Temperament and Pain Response: A Review of the Literature

Abstract Pain is a subjective and uniquely lived experience. Because reactions to pain vary so widely from one person to another, and better pain management remains a major issue in our attempt to resolve pain and suffering of varying populations, we need to generate interventions that better target interindividual variations. One research avenue could be the study of each person’s own biologic and psychologic makeup. Within this path, individual temperament is a rich and fascinating terrain to consider. The purpose of the present article is to describe the relationship between individual temperament and pain response (and pain perception) by searching the literature. Nursing implications regarding this theme are then discussed.

Home Meets Heimat

Home Meets Heimat

The Unpublished Menninger: Divorce, Marriage, and Analyses

Editing the correspondence, like writing the "authorized" biography, of a living person often creates a scholarly and ethical dilemma for a researcher. Although the authors knew they had the legal right to publish what they chose from Karl Menninger's correspondence, they also knew that simply by closing the archives to them, Menninger could circumvent legal niceties. Four sets of letters were left out of their two volumes of Menninger's professional correspondence; all of these omitted letters concern the same subjects—his divorce and remarriage and the two periods of psychoanalysis that coincided with the decisive moments in his romantic and erotic attachments. The longest and bitterest of the exchanges is with Leo Rosten, for whom Menninger's second wife worked briefly during the prolonged period of Menninger's divorce negotiations with his first wife. Exchanges with Menninger's own analysts, Franz Alexander and Ruth Mack Brunswick, and his reflections about them, also reveal intimate details of his personal life and psychological make-up. Printed here for the first time, the letters and commentary, although not always flattering, provide new insight into the workings of the keenest mind, albeit an often divided one, in 1930s psychiatry as well as more fully exposing Menninger's relationships—both personal and professional—with his family and his colleagues.

Wildlife Tourist Archetypes: Are All Polar Bear Viewers in Churchill, Manitoba Ecotourists?

Ecotourists have largely been defined in the literature a priori based on their geographic location (e.g., visitors to designated natural areas) and/or exhibited behaviors (e.g., engagement in nature viewing such as bird watching or camping). However, such definitions fail to consider whether these individuals do indeed embrace the psychological makeup that would qualify them as "real" ecotourists based on ecotourist ideal types. This study derives a profile of wildlife tourists based on their psychographic characteristics as suggested by conceptual definitions of ecotourists and wildlife tourism in particular. Essentially, the question underlying the study was to determine if all wildlife tourists do, in fact, share those characteristics typically assumed in the literature to be inherent to ecotourism.

The Imitation of Alexander the Great in Afghanistan

No one was like him. Terrible were his crimes--but if you wish to blackguard the Great think how mean, obscure and dull you are, your labors lowly and your merits less ... --Robert Lowell, quoted in Paul Cartledge, Alexander the Great: Hunt for a New Past As Harold Bloom (2004, 87) has remarked about Don Quixote, the novel is capable of sustaining almost any interpretation a critic might choose to impress upon it. same might be said about Alexander the Great. His character opens itself up to a wide variety of possible interpretations, Alexander being regarded at one end of the spectrum of possibilities as a lawless despot and at the other end as a high-minded philosopher proclaiming the doctrine of the unity of humankind. (1) My concern here, however, lies not with how scholars have understood Alexander but rather with how Alexander has influenced others, in this case three nineteenth-century adventurers who, in imitation of the Macedonian conqueror, tried and ultimately failed to build kingdoms for themselves in remote regions of Afghanistan at the time largely unknown to the people of the west. (2) Despite a certain common set of experiences, the three adventurers discussed here differ in the various ways they imitated Alexander. first figure to be considered is Daniel or Danny Dravot, hero or, it might better be said, antihero of Rudyard Kipling's short story The Man Who Would Be King, which Kipling composed in 1888 while employed as a journalist in British-controlled India. In Kipling's story, Dravot is a trickster and confidence man; he imitates Alexander in the sense of imitation (mimesis) defined and discussed by Plato in book 3 of the Republic. For Plato imitation is impersonation, and Dravot impersonates the son of the Macedonian conqueror. second figure of interest is close kin to the first: he is the Danny Dravot who serves as the protagonist of John Huston's 1975 film Man Who Would Be King (screenplay by John Huston and Gladys Hill). Despite the judgment of some critics that he remains for the most part faithful to Kipling, Huston portrays Dravot in ways different from Kipling, these differences involving the manner in which Alexander is imitated. Huston's Dravot, while he begins the film as an impostor or conman in the Kipling mode, gradually identifies himself so closely with Alexander that he comes to believe himself to be Alexander's true son. His judgment is warped and his sense of reality compromised because he falls victim to the deleterious effects of mimesis in the sense of imitation that Rene Girard in an important study of the novel and in other works has characterized as (Girard 1966, 1977, 1987, 2001). third figure is Josiah Harlan, the first American in Afghanistan. Harlan's adventures there in the first half of the nineteenth century preceded the composition of Kipling's story and may even have inspired its writing. Perhaps because he was an historical figure with a complex of motives and desires rendered still more opaque by a slim historical record and the passage of almost two centuries, Harlan's mode of imitating Alexander is more difficult to comprehend with the clarity that attends the case of his two fictional counterparts. Nonetheless, I will argue that Harlan may also be said to be a victim of mimetic desire, though in a second, weaker, and more universal sense of the concept that Girard worked out when he turned his attention away from the pathological manifestations of mimetic desire specific to the novel and developed a theory of such desire that also covers its manifestations in the day-to-day lives of ordinary flesh-and-blood human beings. I will, in conclusion, suggest that this weaker sense of mimetic desire may also have played a part in the psychological makeup determining the actions of Alexander himself, who imitated and sought to surpass the deeds of several ancestral and mythical models. (3) Let us begin with a consideration of Rudyard Kipling's story The Man Who Would Be King. …

Mozart: The Early Years, 1756-1781 (review)

Reviewed by: Mozart: The Early Years, 1756–1781 Jane R. Stevens Mozart: The Early Years, 1756–1781. By Stanley Sadie. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. [xxv, 624 p. ISBN 0-393-06112-4. $35.00.] Illustrations, bibliography, indexes. Shortly before his death in March 2005, Stanley Sadie completed the manuscript of the first volume of a long planned two-volume work about Mozart and his music. Sadie was surely correct in perceiving a need for a comprehensive monograph on Mozart's life and works that would take account of over half a century of scholarly studies, both biographical and musical, that have transformed many of our ideas about this most "classical" of composers. Few, moreover, would question this scholar's credentials for such an undertaking, building as it does on decades of research, best known from his New Grove article and other work on Mozart. Yet this is not a project for the faint of heart. Much has changed since the early-twentieth-century canonic work of Hermann Abert, Théodore Wyzewa, and Georges de Saint-Foix: not only has our knowledge of relevant and often essential minutiae vastly increased, from paper and handwriting dating to the identities and lives of countless contemporaries who contributed to Mozart's world; but our most basic views of eighteenth-century music history and of the ways that composers contributed to it have lost their straightforward clarity in favor of an often rather murky complexity. While such considerations only underline the need for this new monograph, at the same time they contribute to the formidable difficulties it faced and to its unavoidable susceptibility to criticism on a multitude of fronts, especially in its present truncated form. Happily, the skill with which Sadie met these difficulties will ensure that his book will become an essential staple of any scholarly library, despite its equally sure fate as a continuing object of scholarly critique. [End Page 588] The plan of this volume, like much else about it, is rather traditional—meaning it is a plan that has served the needs of a great many writers and readers in the past. In twenty chapters, beginning with Mozart's family history and concluding with the composition of Idomeneo, we move through the largely familiar chronological periods of Mozart's first twenty-five years, each characterized by a title that often serves to give direction to the narrative (e.g., "Disappointment in Vienna" [1767–1769], "Frustration" [1775–1777]). The first and usually longer part of each chapter is devoted to detailed biography, including Mozart's composing activity; in most cases this narration is followed by a discussion of the principal works of the period, with attention both to issues of sources and authenticity (where relevant), and to musical commentary. Like all biographies of Mozart, this one must rely for information about these early years on the voluminous correspondence written by and to family members, largely during periods when the young musician was away from his Salzburg home. But Sadie is sometimes able to augment these accounts with those of outsiders commenting on the family's activities. In early chapters, the attention given to the practical details of travel, with sometimes numbing listings of names of inns and people encountered along the way, can lead to reader ennui; one wishes for a map on which one could trace the Mozarts' routes for a vicarious (or actual) tourist expedition. Yet these details serve in themselves to evoke Leopold's own very real concerns during these journeys—how would he get his family safely and comfortably to the next major destination, how much would it cost, would they be able to make enough money in appearances to make up those expenses?—as well as the arbitrariness of their compensation, over which they had no control. As Wolfgang grew older, Leopold's continued preoccupation with these concerns has appeared to modern historians to be increasingly inappropriate (as it certainly was to his son). Ever since the early years of the nineteenth century, Mozart's biographers have been fascinated by his personality, what we might call his psychological makeup. The twentieth century added another element, the psyche of the father and especially...

Is Medicine Flat?

The biomedical model, attempting to explain health and disease in terms of the physical sciences, tends to eliminate or ignore other aspects of sickness phenomena. Medicine and medical education have sought to assert the importance of the patient's subjectivity, including psychological makeup, social context, illness framework, beliefs, culture, and other forces. These offer an added dimension to the flat biomedical surface. The metaphor of flatness and dimensionality may help to conceptualize the role of patient experience in clinical care and in medical education.

Psychosocial Profiles of Young Adolescent Females Seeking Treatment for an Eating Disorder

Purpose Children as young as 12 years of age are presenting for treatment of an eating disorder (ED), underscoring the need to understand the psychological and social make-up of this age group. Early adolescent females seeking treatment for an eating disorder were compared with healthy age-matched controls on psychosocial variables relevant to this stage of development. Methods Self-report measures of individual (e.g., competence and importance ratings across five domains of self-concept, self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism) and contextual factors (e.g., conditional support from mother, father, and peer, and negative peer, family, and school events) were administered to adolescents with EDs (n = 25) and a comparison group comprised of age-matched females from the general population (n = 25 in a low-risk and n = 25 in a high-risk group). Results Compared with the control sample, the ED group had significantly lower ratings of competence in physical appearance and higher ratings on the importance of physical appearance and self-oriented perfectionism. There were no group differences on the parental or peer support variables, or on negative life event variables. Conclusion This study has implications for early identification and early intervention.

Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation (review)

Reviewed by: Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation Francis Oakley Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation. By Brian Patrick McGuire. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2005. Pp. xviii, 446. $85.00 clothbound; $30.00 paperback.) More than forty years ago now, in the distinguished two-volume tome on the later medieval church contributed to Fliche and Martin, Histoire de l'Église, F. Delaruelle chose to devote a whole chapter to Jean Gerson (1363-1429), long-serving Chancellor of the University of Paris, dedicated pastor, gifted preacher, tireless advocate of church reform "in head and members," distinguished theologian, and one of the leading intellectuals of his day. In so doing, and speaking of the first half of the fifteenth century, Delaruelle felt it [End Page 158] warranted to portray the great Chancellor as "the mirror of his times" and to entitle the chapter "Le siècle de Gerson." By the time he did so, scholarly interest in matters Gersonian had long since begun to quicken. That that was the case is evidenced inter alia by the decision of Palémon Glorieux to undertake the first new edition of Gerson's complete works since that of Dupin in 1706, by Max Lieberman's extraordinary (and extraordinarily gritty) series of articles on his life and writings, and by the work of Louis Mourin on his sermons, André Combes on his mystical theology, and J. B. Morrall on his ecclesiology. In the years since then interest in one or other aspect of Gerson's richly varied career has, if anything, intensified. It is reflected, for example, in Gilbert Ouy's fundamental researches on the Gersonian manuscript tradition, in the works of G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes on his ecclesiology, Louis B. Pascoe on his idea of reform, D. Catherine Brown on his pastoral theology, in Brian Patrick McGuire's translation into English of a whole series of his early writings as well as in his sponsorship and editing of a multi-authored Companion to Jean Gerson scheduled by Brill for publication in 2006. All of that duly noted, the surprising thing about the currently thriving field of Gersonian studies is the fact that nobody since John Connolly in 1929 has made a full-scale attempt at a new biographical treatment of the man himself. That prominent gap in Gersoniana McGuire himself has now moved boldly to fill. He has done so in this substantial, painstakingly-researched, carefully-balanced, and finely-nuanced study, clearly the outcome of long years of sustained effort. Unlike Connolly, who organized his somewhat anachronistically defensive biography in thematic fashion, McGuire has gone about his task in straightforward chronological fashion, conducive to the charting of a lifetime's maturation and development on the part of his subject, basing himself on an attentive reading of the full corpus of Gerson's writings, French as well as Latin, and quite self-consciously eschewing "any fashionable theoretical approach"(p. xi). In 1964, noting the sheer volume of Gerson's writing and the self-revelatory nature of much of it, Delaruelle expressed surprise that his complex psychological make-up had not been made the object of any really probing scholarly study. In his own non-theoretical way, McGuire may be said to have remedied that lack. In the course of his book he dwells, often at length, on most of the salient features of Gerson's public career, from his early and surprisingly unrestrained attack on the teaching of the Dominican theologian Juan de Monzon concerning the Immaculate Conception, down to the passionate but ultimately unsuccessful campaign he pursued at the Council of Constance (and in the teeth of Burgundian opposition) to secure a full-blown condemnation of Jean Petit's attempt to vindicate the legitimacy of tyrannicide. Thus he focuses, in the years intervening, on Gerson's unsuccessful attempt as dean to reform the chapter of the collegiate church of Saint Donatien at Bruges, on his leadership of the Parisian faculty of theology in its opposition to the attempt [End Page 159] (1409) of the Franciscan Jean Gorel to vindicate the alleged pastoral prerogatives of the mendicant orders, on his ongoing effort via sermon and tract to forward on a...

Taking Anesthetic Practice Few Steps Higher: A Personal Prospective

Taking Anesthetic Practice Few Steps Higher: A Personal Prospective

On The Limits Of Psychoanalytic Theory: A Cautionary Perspective

Citing the complexities of the human mind with respect to early development and its functioning in later life, the author cautions against the reliance on any individual psychoanalytic theory in clinical work. Psychoanalytic theories, in general, do not take into account many factors such as the patient's constitutional givens, his or her inborn temperament, family system factors, the impact of the autonomous functions on development, the limits of the child in Piagetian terms, or post-oedipal learning. The analyst's favorite theory may become a belief system that shapes his or her understanding of the patient leading to an imposition of the theory on the data. The analyst's sense of certainty about his or her favorite theory may be based on a transference to the author of the theory or from its fit with his or her own psychological makeup. Cited is Greenson's position (1969/1978) that if he tries to imagine an analytic session with a "true believer" analyst repeating the catechism of his school, he would find it "hard to see this as a living creative experience for either the patient or the therapist" (p. 354). Ultimately, not accountable in terms of any psychoanalytic theory, there is something ineffable, which is the persistent and basically indestructible essence of the person that cannot be explained on the basis of good mothering or on the basis of a facilitating environment. Whether this is thought of as "soul" or "spirit," or even a Winnicottian "true self," it is not something the psychotherapist can omnipotently create. It can only be discovered - unearthed, unburied, cleared away of emotional clutter.

The Influences Influencing Personal Influence: Scholarship and Entrepreneurship

The article examines how the study that resulted in Personal Influence came to be funded by True Story magazine. It does so by looking at Lazarsfeld's research career. Lazarsfeld is seen as an institutional innovator in higher education, having established in Vienna in 1925 the first social science research center of its kind in the world, and later the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University. The structural situation of the Bureau is examined in detail, showing how Lazarsfeld developed the role of entrepreneurial scholar to finance its operations. The article examines Lazarsfeld's psychological makeup, which meshed well with the world of business as well as the Bureau's need for commercial fund-raising. Having given the context of Lazarsfeld's operations, the final part of the article examines how the study was “sold” to True Storymagazine.

“Broken windows” and Self-Esteem: Subjective understandings of neighborhood poverty and disorder

In response to recent empirical research suggesting that how a person perceives his or her neighborhood translates into a number of psychological outcomes, this study seeks to assess the relative roles of (perceptions of) neighborhood disorder and objective levels of neighborhood poverty in influencing individuals’ self-reported self-esteem. Utilizing a series of structural equation models and data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, this paper lends support to the presence of perceived neighborhood disorder as a mediating factor in the relationship between neighborhood poverty and self-esteem. Although disorder does not significantly and entirely replace the relationship between poverty rate and individual self-esteem, resident perceptions of neighborhood physical disorder are shown to be significantly related to self-esteem and are stronger in magnitude than the effect of poverty rate. Moreover, the models demonstrate that two of the pathways through which this effect operates are via civic engagement and compromised physical health. Although resident perceptions of neighborhood disorder do not unequivocally erase the effect of neighborhood poverty levels in explaining variance in self-esteem, the models do provide evidence of the crucial, non-trivial role of neighborhood disorder in shaping self-esteem. This research supports prior theory that has suggested that blighted and decaying urban neighborhoods are read as disinvestments both by residents and by city governments, and therefore, these images are internalized and incorporated into residents’ psychological makeup.

Remaking the real man: Erectile dysfunction palliatives and the social re-construction of the male Heterosexual life cycle

The popularity of impotence or erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs and the powerful imagery of their promotional campaigns may be a significant contributor to the social reconstruction of male sexuality and aging in general, and popular understandings of the male heterosexual in particular. This is note-worthy given that the heterosexual male is a demographic that has, historically, been quite resistant to the whims of the psycho-medical establishment. Given men’s psychological and physiological makeup, the emerging social expectations of male sexuality may be wholly unrealistic, with its matter-overmind rhetoric. Examining the language and imagery of several ED drug campaigns, and considering some popular therapeutic, and academic discourse on the subject, the paper considers some of the expectations facing men in our society today that have recently been generated by the sexual pharmacology industry. The analysis suggests how these new expectations potentially liberate and constrain men in various ways, solidifies a male ethos that focuses almost exclusively on the physical component, and thereby displaces men from the context of the romantic relationship.

The burning of Bridget Cleary: Psychiatric aspects of a tragic tale

Bridget Cleary was brutally burned to death by her husband in the presence of her father and several close relatives in rural Ireland in 1895. The story has attracted public attention for more than a century now, for numerous reasons. The issue of psychiatric illness in this tragedy, and the role of fairy mythology in belief systems in 19th Century rural Ireland are reviewed, particularly in relation to providing explanations for physical and psychiatric illness, along with learning disability. Reference was made to a wide range of sources featuring the burning of Bridget Cleary. There is some evidence to suggest that the actions of Michael Cleary and other key protagonists were influenced by Capgras syndrome and folie a plusiers. Delusional belief in fairy mythology may have coloured the psychological make-up, motivations and behaviour of some of the people involved in the killing of Bridget Cleary.

Preventing violence in relationships: Psychological science addressing complex social issues.

Abstract This paper traces the development of a universal violence prevention initiative from its early roots in the dynamics of child abuse developmental psychopathology. My research has been devoted to preventing violence in relationships, including physical and sexual abuse of children, children who witness domestic violence, woman abuse, and dating violence in adolescence. A central theme throughout this work has been to integrate psychological knowledge about healthy, non-violent relationships with knowledge of risk factors for abuse and violence. As laws and public sentiment have challenged the generations-old status quo of family privacy and personal rights, psychology has risen to this challenge by studying aspects of abuse and violence in the lab, in analog situations, in the home, and in the clinic. This paper reflects how knowledge about the causes and consequences of violence in relationships is leading to promising educational and prevention initiatives such as the Fourth R, a universal schoolbased initiative aimed at early adolescence to reduce relationship violence and related risk behaviours. The foundation for this paper began 25 years ago, when Peter Jaffe and I met for the first time over lunch. I had recently arrived in Canada from the U.S. and was struggling to develop effective interventions for child abusive parents with the local Children's Aid Society. Peter was facing similar challenges in working with the police and court system's response to youth and families in crisis. Child abuse and domestic violence were recurring themes in both of our research and clinical efforts, and quickly became the focus of our luncheon discussion. Peter was preparing an assessment for the juvenile court about a 15-year-old boy charged with attempted murder of his stepfather. The prosecutor had made application to the court to have the charges heard in adult court because the case involved a premeditated act with a firearm. A psychological assessment for the court had been ordered to determine whether the young man belonged in the juvenile or adult system. What appeared at first to be a violent act involving a premeditated ambush of his stepfather when he arrived home from work, upon closer examination was in fact the culmination of 15 years of domestic violence and child abuse. The local police department had responded to domestic violence calls at this home for many years, but the violence continued. With a growing sense of hopelessness and helplessness, the boy decided to take matters into his own hands and use the very weapon his stepfather had often used to threaten his mother. In our view, the offence before the court was more a reflection of the community's failure to address the reality of the violence experienced in this family than it was of the adolescent's character or psychological make-up. At the time this view was radical and sometimes misconstrued as condoning youth violence. However, the psychological assessment revealed the impact on this boy of growing up in a family war zone in which his mother suffered severe physical and emotional abuse on a frequent basis. To adapt to his family circumstances, this boy's survival and coping strategies had become increasingly desperate and ineffective. For the past three years, he had shown behaviour problems in school, signs of depression and anger, poor school attendance, declining achievement, and involvement in drugs and alcohol. Rather than these problems being viewed as warning signs of possible violence in the home or other major family stressors, they were taken at face value as signs of an antisocial adolescent. There was a sense of outrage among some community members that an adolescent was capable of such an offence, and they wanted the court to impose the most severe sentence possible. The assessment, in contrast, clearly showed a normal adolescent who had faced many years of tyranny, and ultimately had acted in self-defense of his mother, his sister, and himself. …

Constructions of the Berlin Wall: How Material Culture Is Used in Psychological Theory

This article examines how, in the latter part of the twentieth century, the German psychological sciences used the Berlin Wall to interpret and make sense of the psychological make-up of the German people. It focuses on how the wall has been invoked by psychiatrists, applied psychologists, and psychotherapists in their writings at three historical moments: (1) after its initial construction in 1961, (2) immediately after its fall in 1989, and (3) 10 years after its demise. After the wall was erected, it became an interpretive resource to think about a divided society, and to make visible, decipherable, and classifiable, the inner life of a people. Shortly after its fall, it continued to serve as a basis for categorizing human suffering. Ten years later the wall had been rhetorically transformed into a “mental wall” offering a compelling metaphor for modern Germany's apparent psychological and cultural divide. The three case studies exemplify how the psychological sciences use material objects, such as the Berlin Wall, as interpretive resources to reflect on psychological issues, make sense of societal transformations, and create and solve social problems.

Palliative Care of the Terminally Ill Drug Addict

Palliative care with terminally ill drug addicts is a major challenge for medical professionals to face. With growing problems of prescription drug abuse in this country, the problem is only going to continue to grow and be faced more often. To date, very little has been done focusing on this special population of end-of-life care patients. This review article attempts to explore the terminology and definitions for identifying addiction in the terminally ill as well as exploring management options for healthcare professionals. As with other opioid treated pain patients, relying on terms such as “physiological dependence” and “tolerance” is inappropriate for use in this population, who are likely to have been on opioids for extended periods of time requiring dose escalation for progressive disease. Thus, these terms have little utility for identifying problem patients. Rather, understanding the context of the drug abuse as it reflects on the concepts of use despite harm and the damage inflicted to the physical, psychological, or social make-up of the patient is necessary. Recommendations include careful monitoring and assessment of patients, utilizing multidisciplinary team approaches, encouraging participation in recovery programs, and utilization of pill counts and urine toxicology screenings as necessary. Implications for the field are discussed.

Fathers and Daughters in Verdi’s Operas

Psychobiography is a treacherous business. It usually tells us more about the biographer than the subject. It is akin to doing dream analysis without having the patient's associations. It is a doubly treacherous undertaking with a man like Verdi. He was a very proud and private person who was immensely secretive about his relationships with his intimates. Additionally, his parents were both illiterate, so there is no record of his childhood. In this paper I shall consider the meaning of the father-child relationships in Verdi’s operas, relate them to events in his life, and use this data to cast some light on his psychological makeup. Originally in MPPA March 1986 [MPPA 1(1):30-34, 1986].

Marxist History and Postwar Japanese Nationalism (review)

Reviewed by: Marxist History and Postwar Japanese Nationalism J. Victor Koschmann (bio) Marxist History and Postwar Japanese Nationalism. By Curtis Anderson Gayle. RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2003. viii, 200 pages. $90.00. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels paid relatively little attention to nationalism, focusing instead on class conflict, which they assumed—as suggested in their assertion in the Communist Manifesto that "the working men have no country"—would ultimately transcend national boundaries. Of course, Marxist revolutionary leaders were eventually forced to come to terms with nationalism, and among them Joseph Stalin produced the most influential general concept of the nation. In his 1913 pamphlet, "Marxism and the National Question," Stalin described a nation as a "historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture" (p. 4). He generally believed that peoples that met these criteria deserved political independence. According to Curtis Gayle, in this much-needed study of "ethnic nationalism" in Japanese historiography, Stalin's formulation played an important conceptual role in helping Marxists to identify in the Japanese past a nation that was independent of, and capable of resisting, the state and imperialism. The term they often used for this nation was minzoku, which generally implied an ethnic (or racial) rather than politically contrived collectivity, although it was used in a wide, and often confusing, variety of ways. Gayle's main focus chronologically is the 1950s broadly defined, because some Marxist historians—generally members of the Rekishigaku Kenkyūkai (Historical Science Society)—began to think and write in terms [End Page 486] of ethnic nationalism as early as 1948, paralleling the Japan Communist Party's turn away from "democratization" under the U.S.-led occupation toward a strategy of "Democratic Ethnic-National Unification Front" (Minshu Minzoku Tōitsu Sensen) in opposition to American imperialism. In other words, the critical contemporary need for a national liberation movement against the United States forced leftist intellectuals to reconsider the nation as a potential vehicle of historical subjectivity and resistance. They came to believe that there had long existed in Japan a submerged nation of people united by economic life, language, and "psychological make-up manifested in a common culture" (p. 4) that was relatively independent of the Japanese state and imperialism, and capable not only of mounting a resistance movement against American neocolonialism but of maintaining relations of solidarity with other anticolonial Asian nations. Gayle is well aware that a nationalist focus on the Japanese ethnic nation, or minzoku, was hardly unique to the 1950s. In a particularly interesting chapter, he explores debates on the ethnic nation that took place in the 1930s among Marxists and other leftists, including Hayakawa Jirō, Ōyama Ikuo, Matsubara Hiroshi, and Tosaka Jun, who often wrote for the journal Yuibutsuron kenkyū (Studies in materialism). They sought to distinguish the ethnic nation from the state, capitalism, and imperialism, but they also distanced it from multiethnicity which, in the context of Japanese colonialism and assimilationist ideology, they associated with Japanese imperial expansion. Gayle concludes that members of the Yuibutsuron Kenkyu debate often focused during this period upon the inherent legitimacy of ethnic and cultural distinctions among Japan and other East Asian ethnic nations. If Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and China were each individuated according to their respective traditions the Japanese state's hidden claim to racial superiority, based upon a Yamato Minzoku that alone could become the center of cultural advancement and assimilation, would be undercut. (p. 35) Thus, in the context of Japan's wartime drive to "assimilate" colonials and other Asians into a regional empire, an ethnic nationalist emphasis on racial and cultural homogeneity could be seen as progressive. Of course, in the wake of Japan's surrender, the occupation stripped it of empire and encouraged a narrow approach to Japanese nationality (that excluded resident Koreans), so by the 1950s the implications of Marxist ethnic nationalism differed considerably. The decade of the 1950s in East Asia was inaugurated by communist victory in China and war in Korea, while in Japan there were crackdowns on labor activism, the Red Purge, and then peace and security treaties that locked Japan into the cold war structure...