Unconditional democracy : education and politics in occupied Japan, 1945-1952
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Unconditional democracy : education and politics in occupied Japan, 1945-1952
(Education and society series)(Hoover Institution publication, 244)
Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2004
- : pbk
Available at 12 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
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National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies Library (GRIPS Library)
: pbk210.76||N8100875900
Note
"First printing, 1982, first paperback printing, 2004" -- T.p. verso
Bibliography: p. [353]-359
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
On December 8 (Japan time), 1941, Imperial Japan launched a massive attack on beautiful Pearl Harbor, calling it "the preemptive first strike." The island empire, seduced by a mirage of eternal glory, had lunged forward without knowing its destination. Imperial Japan, fiercely proud, fought to the last soldier against the strongest nation in the world. Throngs of women and children who had encouraged the soldiers to kill every enemy had also died for the promise of eternal grandeur. In the heart of the empire, the Japanese, who had survived the blanket bombings by the "flying fortress" B29s and the two atomic bombs, waited for the dishonor of surrender.Born in Japan five days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I grew up in the terrible aftermath of Japan's first defeat in war. And, like all other children who had survived, I knew hunger, poverty, and the burden of defeat. I remember leaving Osaka with my mother for the mountainous countryside, where she, a wealthy landowner, employed many tenant farmers. The train we took had all its windows painted black to hide from the B-29s, which rained incendiary firebombs on anything visible or moving. Even with that precaution, our train crawled through the darkness of the night. Soon afterward, Osaka was reduced to smoldering ruins.President Harry S. Truman assigned the illustrious U.S. Army general, Douglas MacArthur to the unprecedented task of changing militant Japan to a peace-loving nation. We, conquered and starving, thought the tall, handsome, and charismatic MacArthur was "the missionary of democracy." The reissue of Unconditional Democracy (originally published in 1982) will, I hope, illustrate the difficult mission of a regime change: a successful metamorphosis that amalgamates incompatible cultures and religions, conflicting memories of hopes and disappointments, and then gives birth to something greater than the past.
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