The influence of Western ideas and know-how on the modernization of Japan remains one of the most important subjects in Japanese Studies; indeed, today s Japan cannot be understood without a comprehension of the impact of thought and practice from the West. With regard to the history of women in Japan, Western ideas were especially central since the women s movement in Japan was founded on the translation of Western books into Japanese, a process that began in Meiji times and continued into the early Showa era. During this period, along with classical texts by such authors as J. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer, some lesser books on the subject were also translated and published in Japanese. This new series from Edition Synapse now available outside Japan from Routledge collects some of those texts, many of which have been forgotten, but which nonetheless played important roles in the foundation of Japanese feminism. The second and the final collection includes facsimile reprints of the first editions of the English works which influenced the Japanese women s movement in the early Showa era by authors, including, among others, Jessica Smith, Bernard Shaw, and Sylvia Pankhurst.

Following on from "Sources and Perspectives in the History of British Feminism", "Controversies in the History of British Feminism" is the third set of 6 volumes which looks at controversial aspects of the women's movement. Feminism has always been characterized by ideological dispute and conflict over strategy in the struggle for equality, and controversies have focused mainly on the means rather than the ends involved in the achievment of the movement's specific goals. On the issue of the fight for the vote the controversies were clearly visible. The conflicts within the women's suffrage movement eventually led to the split between the suffragettes, who supported militancy, and those who opposed it. Not surprisingly, the historical record has been shaped by the political persuasions of a particular narrator. For example, the story of the "Women's Social and Political Union" told by Christabel Pankhurst in "Unshackled" in Volume 6 differs in points of emphasis from the version narrated by her sister, Sylvia Pankhurst in "The Suffragette Movement".