Inside wartime Japan, the ordinary energetic, conscientious citizen
went about his business bemuse 1) the government respected social
traditions; 2) he didn't want to be out of step; 3) he had no
practical choice. Havens' account of home-front life - the first,
remarkably, of its kind - springs no surprises and draws few
hard-and-fast conclusions. To anyone familiar with Japan, however,
it underlines the people's renowned cohesiveness, reaffirms
continuity as the key to stability-under-fire - and demonstrates
the limits of government influence, even among the conformist
Japanese. Critical to their commitment were the neighborhood
associations which - as Havens spells out - "eventually drew nearly
every civilian into the day-to-day administration of the home
front." Without pay, they undertook everything from collecting tax
payments to distributing food and clothing rations to repairing
pots and pans. Custom also dictated, however, that women not be
fully mobilized - though economic pressure forced many to work and,
in the absence of men, routine neighborhood duties fell to them,
necessarily broadening their outlook. It was the beginning, too, of
today's Sanchan farm system, with mother, grandmother, and
grandfather working the land and father employed in a factory. But
the campaign to raise the birth rate failed - times were too
difficult - and the forced evacuation of children, indulged and
cherished, was highly unpopular. At no time, however, was protest
overt, and the Japanese - bombed out, relocated, eating ersatz food
and going barefoot - toiled on beyond hope of victory. They have
passed along to their children, Havens suggests, a lesson in
perseverance. His description, based on contemporary sources and
interviews, tends overall to diminish his claims of significant
change, apart from the immeasurable effect of war and defeat. But
he has made humanly intelligible the Japan that, to new arrivals,
seemed reborn under American occupation and economic advance.
(Kirkus Reviews)
This volume portrays the daily life of ordinary Japanese civilians
on the home front during World War Two. Drawing extensively on
wartime records and early postwar recollections of people who lived
through the war era, the book reveals a surprisingly cohesive
society that bore up remarkably well. Originally published by W.W.
Norton and Company in 1978.
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