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In Mobilizing Japanese Youth, Christopher Gerteis examines how
non-state institutions in Japan—left-wing radicals and right-wing
activists—attempted to mold the political consciousness of the
nation's first postwar generation, which by the late 1960s were the
demographic majority of voting-age adults. Gerteis argues that
socially constructed aspects of class and gender preconfigured the
forms of political rhetoric and social organization that both the
far-right and far-left deployed to mobilize postwar, further
exacerbating the levels of social and political alienation
expressed by young blue- and pink- collar working men and women
well into the 1970s, illustrated by high-profile acts of political
violence committed by young Japanese in this era. As Gerteis shows,
Japanese youth were profoundly influenced by a transnational flow
of ideas and people that constituted a unique historical
convergence of pan-Asianism, Mao-ism, black nationalism,
anti-imperialism, anticommunism, neo-fascism, and
ultra-nationalism. Mobilizing Japanese Youth carefully unpacks
their formative experiences and the social, cultural, and political
challenges to both the hegemonic culture and the authority of the
Japanese state that engulfed them. The 1950s-style
mass-mobilization efforts orchestrated by organized labor could not
capture their political imagination in the way that more extreme
ideologies could. By focusing on how far-right and far-left
organizations attempted to reach-out to young radicals, especially
those of working-class origins, this book offers a new
understanding of successive waves of youth radicalism since 1960.
Does Japan really matter anymore? The challenges of recent Japanese
history have led some pundits and scholars to publicly wonder
whether Japan's significance is starting to wane. The
multidisciplinary essays that comprise Japan Since 1945 demonstrate
its ongoing importance and relevance. Examining the historical
context to the social, cultural, and political underpinnings of
Japan's postwar development, the contributors re-engage earlier
discourses and introduce new veins of research. Japan Since 1945
provides a much needed update to existing scholarly work on the
history of contemporary Japan. It moves beyond the 'lost decade'
and 'terrible devastation' frameworks that have thus far defined
too much of the discussion, offering a more nuanced picture of the
nation's postwar development.
Does Japan really matter anymore? The challenges of recent Japanese
history have led some pundits and scholars to publicly wonder
whether Japan's significance is starting to wane. The
multidisciplinary essays that comprise Japan Since 1945 demonstrate
its ongoing importance and relevance. Examining the historical
context to the social, cultural, and political underpinnings of
Japan's postwar development, the contributors re-engage earlier
discourses and introduce new veins of research. Japan Since 1945
provides a much needed update to existing scholarly work on the
history of contemporary Japan. It moves beyond the 'lost decade'
and 'terrible devastation' frameworks that have thus far defined
too much of the discussion, offering a more nuanced picture of the
nation's postwar development.
In the formative years of the Japanese labor movement after World
War II, the socialist unions affiliated with the General Council of
Trade Unions (the labor federation known colloquially as S hy )
formally endorsed the principles of women's equality in the
workforce and put in place measures to promote women's active
participation in union activities. However, union leaders did not
embrace the legal framework for gender equality mandated by their
American occupiers; rather, they pressured thousands of women labor
activists to assume supportive roles that privileged a
male-centered social agenda. By the late 1950s, even Japan's
radical socialist unions had reestablished the primacy of
conservative gender norms, channeling women's labor activism to
support political campaigns that advantaged a male-headed household
and that relegated women's wage-earning value to the periphery of
the household economy. By showing how unions raised the wages of
male workers in part by transforming working-class women into
middle-class housewives, Christopher Gerteis demonstrates that
organized labor's discourse on womanhood not only undermined
women's status within the labor movement, but also prevented unions
from linking with the emerging woman-led, neighborhood-centered
organizations that typified social movements in the 1960s-a misstep
that contributed to the decline of the socialist labor movement in
subsequent decades.
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