Download or read book Neighborhood and Nation in Tokyo 1905 1937 written by Sally Ann Hastings and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pre-World War II analysis of working-class areas of Tokyo, primarily its Honjo ward, Hastings shows that bureaucrats, particularly in the Home Ministry, were concerned with the needs of their citizens and took significant steps to protect the city's working families and the poor. She also demonstrates that the public participated broadly in politics, through organizations such as reservist groups, national youth leagues, neighborhood organizations, as well as growing suffrage and workplace organizations.
Download or read book Gender Nation and State in Modern Japan written by Andrea Germer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-25 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender, Nation and State in Modern Japan makes a unique contribution to the international literature on the formation of modern nation–states in its focus on the gendering of the modern Japanese nation-state from the late nineteenth century to the present. References to gender relations are deeply embedded in the historical concepts of nation and nationalism, and in the related symbols, metaphors and arguments. Moreover, the development of the binary opposition between masculinity and femininity and the development of the modern nation-state are processes which occurred simultaneously. They were the product of a shift from a stratified, hereditary class society to a functionally-differentiated social body. This volume includes the work of an international group of scholars from Japan, the United States, Australia and Germany, which in many cases appears in English for the first time. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective on the formation of the modern Japanese nation–state, including comparative perspectives from research on the formation of the modern nation–state in Europe, thus bringing research on Japan into a transnational dialogue. This volume will be of interest in the fields of modern Japanese history, gender studies, political science and comparative studies of nationalism.
Download or read book The Great Kant Earthquake and the Chimera of National Reconstruction in Japan written by J. Charles Schencking and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1923, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated eastern Japan, killing more than 120,000 people and leaving two million homeless. Using a rich array of source material, J. Charles Schencking tells for the first time the graphic tale of Tokyo's destruction and rebirth. In emotive prose, he documents how the citizens of Tokyo experienced this unprecedented calamity and explores the ways in which it rattled people's deep-seated anxieties about modernity. While explaining how and why the disaster compelled people to reflect on Japanese society, he also examines how reconstruction encouraged the capital's inhabitants to entertain new types of urbanism as they rebuilt their world. Some residents hoped that a grandiose metropolis, reflecting new values, would rise from the ashes of disaster-ravaged Tokyo. Many, however, desired a quick return of the city they once called home. Opportunistic elites advocated innovative state infrastructure to better manage the daily lives of Tokyo residents. Others focused on rejuvenating society—morally, economically, and spiritually—to combat the perceived degeneration of Japan. Schencking explores the inspiration behind these dreams and the extent to which they were realized. He investigates why Japanese citizens from all walks of life responded to overtures for renewal with varying degrees of acceptance, ambivalence, and resistance. His research not only sheds light on Japan's experience with and interpretation of the earthquake but challenges widespread assumptions that disasters unite stricken societies, creating a "blank slate" for radical transformation. National reconstruction in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, Schencking demonstrates, proved to be illusive.
Download or read book Neighborhood Associations and Local Governance in Japan written by Robert J. Pekkanen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-20 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although local neighborhood associations are found in many countries, Japan’s are distinguished by their ubiquity, scope of activities, and very high participation rates, making them important for the study of society and politics. Most Japanese belong to one local neighborhood association or another, making them Japan’s most numerous civil society organization, and one that powerfully shapes governance outcomes in the country. And, they also often blur the state-society boundary, making them theoretically intriguing. Neighborhood Associations and Local Governance in Japan draws on a unique and novel body of empirical data derived from the first national survey of neighborhood associations carried out in 2007 and provides a multifaceted empirical portrait of Japan’s neighborhood associations. It examines how local associational structures affect the quality of local governance, and thus the quality of life for Japan’s citizens and residents, and illuminates the way in which these ambiguous associations can help us refine civil society theory and show how they contribute to governance. As well as outlining the key features of neighbourhood associations, the book goes on to examine in detail the way in which neighbourhood associations contribute to governance, in terms of social capital, networks with other community organizations, social service provision, cooperation with local governments and political participation. This book will be welcomed by students and scholars of Japanese politics, Japanese society, anthropology, urban studies as well as those interested in social capital and civil society.
Download or read book Moral Nation written by Miriam Kingsberg and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-12-07 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This trailblazing study examines the history of narcotics in Japan to explain the development of global criteria for political legitimacy in nations and empires in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Japan underwent three distinct crises of sovereignty in its modern history: in the 1890s, during the interwar period, and in the 1950s. Each crisis provoked successively escalating crusades against opium and other drugs, in which moral entrepreneurs--bureaucrats, cultural producers, merchants, law enforcement, scientists, and doctors, among others--focused on drug use as a means of distinguishing between populations fit and unfit for self-rule. Moral Nation traces the instrumental role of ideologies about narcotics in the country's efforts to reestablish its legitimacy as a nation and empire. As Kingsberg demonstrates, Japan's growing status as an Asian power and a "moral nation" expanded the notion of "civilization" from an exclusively Western value to a universal one. Scholars and students of Japanese history, Asian studies, world history, and global studies will gain an in-depth understanding of how Japan's experience with narcotics influenced global standards for sovereignty and shifted the aim of nation building, making it no longer a strictly political activity but also a moral obligation to society.
Download or read book Japan a Modern History written by James L. McClain and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2002 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan: A Modern History provides a comprehensive narrative that integrates the political, social, cultural, and economic history of modern Japan from the investiture of Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 to the present.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History written by Peter Clark and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 913 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2008 for the first time the majority of the planet's inhabitants lived in cities and towns. Becoming globally urban has been one of mankind's greatest collective achievements over time. Written by leading scholar, this is the first detailed survey of the world's cities and towns from ancient times to the present day.
Download or read book Sh wa Japan 1926 1941 written by Stephen S. Large and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1998 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Local Organizations and Urban Governance in East and Southeast Asia written by Benjamin L. Read and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection brings together enterprising pieces of new research on the many forms of organization in East and Southeast Asia that are sponsored or mandated by government, but engage widespread participation at the grassroots level. Straddling the state-society divide, these organizations play important roles in society and politics, yet remain only dimly understood. This book shines a spotlight on this phenomenon, which speaks to fundamental questions about how such societies choose to organize themselves, how institutions of local governance change over time, and how individuals respond to and make use of the power of the state. The contributors investigate organizations ranging from volunteer-based organizations that partner with government in providing services for homeless children, to state-managed networks of neighborhood- or village-level associations that perform representative as well as administrative functions and seeks to answer a number of questions: When do the "vertical," top-down imperatives of the state stifle "horizontal" solidarities, and when might the two work in harmony? Are useful social and administrative purposes served by this type of fusion? Does it amplify or merely muffle citizens’ voices? What does it tell us about existing accounts of community, social capital, "synergy," "complementarity," "subsidiarity," and related concepts? Representing seven countries: China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Singapore this volume will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in Asian studies, political science, sociology, anthropology, development, history, nonprofit studies.
Download or read book Prisoners of the Empire written by Sarah Kovner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pathbreaking account of World War II POW camps, challenging the longstanding belief that the Japanese Empire systematically mistreated Allied prisoners. In only five months, from the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 to the fall of Corregidor in May 1942, the Japanese Empire took prisoner more than 140,000 Allied servicemen and 130,000 civilians from a dozen different countries. From Manchuria to Java, Burma to New Guinea, the Japanese army hastily set up over seven hundred camps to imprison these unfortunates. In the chaos, 40 percent of American POWs did not survive. More Australians died in captivity than were killed in combat. Sarah Kovner offers the first portrait of detention in the Pacific theater that explains why so many suffered. She follows Allied servicemen in Singapore and the Philippines transported to Japan on “hellships” and singled out for hard labor, but also describes the experience of guards and camp commanders, who were completely unprepared for the task. Much of the worst treatment resulted from a lack of planning, poor training, and bureaucratic incoherence rather than an established policy of debasing and tormenting prisoners. The struggle of POWs tended to be greatest where Tokyo exercised the least control, and many were killed by Allied bombs and torpedoes rather than deliberate mistreatment. By going beyond the horrific accounts of captivity to actually explain why inmates were neglected and abused, Prisoners of the Empire contributes to ongoing debates over POW treatment across myriad war zones, even to the present day.
Download or read book Modern Japan written by Elise K. Tipton and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a comprehensive collection of critical essays on The Taming of the Shrew, and includes extensive discussions of the play's various printed versions and its theatrical productions. Aspinall has included only those essays that offer the most influential and controversial arguments surrounding the play. The issues discussed include gender, authority, female autonomy and unruliness, courtship and marriage, language and speech, and performance and theatricality.
Download or read book Down and Out in Late Meiji Japan written by James L. Huffman and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2018-04-30 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping work of original scholarship, Down and Out in Late Meiji Japan examines the daily lives of Japan’s hinmin (poor people), particularly urban slum-dwellers, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. James Huffman draws on newspaper articles, official surveys, and reminiscences to recreate for readers life as experienced by the poor themselves—something not attempted before in scholarship on this era. He begins by explaining the causes behind the fast-increasing numbers of poor neighborhoods in major cities after the late 1880s and goes on to describe in fascinating detail what those neighborhoods looked like and what their inhabitants did for a living: collecting night soil, weaving textiles, making match boxes and other piecework, pulling rickshaws, building the structures that made Japan “modern,” and supplying much of the era’s entertainment, including sex. He also explores what hinmin did outside of work: what they ate, where they did their wash, how they stretched their meager budgets by using pawn brokers, and how they dealt with illness and other disasters and grappled with the painful necessity of sending children to work rather than to school. Huffman argues that despite the tremendous challenge of day-to-day living, hinmin confronted life as energetic agents, embracing it as avidly as members of the more affluent classes. Reading sources carefully, and often against the grain, he reveals that many of the poor found meaning in their work, took an active and even influential part in their cities’ politics, and nursed ambitions for a better life. And nearly all took part in the pleasures and festivities that urban neighborhoods offered. Later chapters examine poverty outside the cities and the large-scale emigration of indigent farmers to Hawai‘i’s sugar plantations, beginning in 1885. In his conclusion, Huffman looks at late-Meiji hardship in light of twenty-first-century poverty and the global income disparity that has captured the public’s attention in recent years.
Download or read book Parkscapes written by Thomas R. H. Havens and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan today protects one-seventh of its land surface in parks, which are visited by well over a billion people each year. Parkscapes analyzes the origins, development, and distinctive features of these public spaces. Green zones were created by the government beginning in the late nineteenth century for state purposes but eventually evolved into sites of negotiation between bureaucrats and ordinary citizens who use them for demonstrations, riots, and shelters, as well as recreation. Thomas Havens shows how revolutionary officials in the 1870s seized private properties and converted them into public parks for educating and managing citizens in the new emperor-sanctioned state. Rebuilding Tokyo and Yokohama after the earthquake and fires of 1923 spurred the spread of urban parklands both in the capital and other cities. According to Havens, the growth of suburbs, the national mobilization of World War II, and the post-1945 American occupation helped speed the creation of more urban parks, setting the stage for vast increases in public green spaces during Japan’s golden age of affluence from the 1960s through the 1980s. Since the 1990s the Japanese public has embraced a heightened ecological consciousness and become deeply involved in the design and management of both city and natural parks—realms once monopolized by government bureaucrats. As in other prosperous countries, public-private partnerships have increasingly become the norm in operating parks for public benefit, yet the heavy hand of officialdom is still felt throughout Japan’s open lands. Based on extensive research in government documents, travel records, and accounts by frequent park visitors, Parkscapes is the first book in any language to examine the history of both urban and national parks of Japan. As an account of how Japan’s experience of spatial modernity challenges current thinking about protection and use of the nonhuman environment globally, the book will appeal widely to readers of spatial and environmental history as well as those interested in modern Japan and its many inviting green spaces.
Download or read book Hegel s Philosophy of Reality Freedom and God written by Robert M. Wallace and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-04 with total page 878 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Showing the relevance of Hegel's arguments, this book discusses both original texts and their interpretations.
Download or read book Second Metropolis written by Blair A. Ruble and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-05-28 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how social fragmentation led to pluralistic public policies in Chicago, Moscow, and Osaka.
Download or read book Moral Authoritarianism written by Shinyoung Kwon and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moral Authoritarianism offers a new perspective on the three modern Korean states—the Japanese colonial state, South Korea, and North Korea—by studying neighborhood associations during the four war decades (1930s–1960s). The existing historiography perceives the three states in relation to imperialism and to the Cold War, thus emphasizing their differences by political changes. By shifting the focus from national policy to local society, this book instead reveals their deep similarities. Neighborhood associations dated back to the premodern Chosŏn period (1392–1910), when they were used to assist local governance. They faded in significance until the colonial government established “patriotic neighborhood associations” in 1938 for its war against China. Through analysis of government documents from the three Koreas and additional sources that include diaries, leaflets, newspapers, and even fiction, Moral Authoritarianism explores neighborhood associations as a site of negotiation between families, local society, and the central government; exposing the moral authoritarian structure present in all three Koreas. Colonial neighborhood associations, tasked with the national mobilization of local Koreans, advanced programs of mass enlightenment that privileged state interests over individual rights, in the process blurring the line between morality and state authority and superimposing patriarchal familial dynamics on societal relations. Despite their different ideological orientations, the neighborhood associations of two postliberation Koreas shared the same enlightenment mission with their earlier forms, and this commonality is critical to understanding the authoritarian direction taken by South and North Korea. The neighborhood association entrusted each state with promoting community-based morality and spirit of voluntarism as an alternative to amoral laissez-faire capitalism and the individual right-based West. Consequently, the state retained its supremacy over the populace at the most basic level of community organization, and Koreans were encouraged to respond to state calls, culminating into two authoritarianisms of the 1970s—Korean style democracy and “our own style” socialism.
Download or read book The City as Subject written by Jeffrey E. Hanes and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-05-10 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After three years of advanced study in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, during which he engaged Marxism and later steeped himself in the exciting new field of social economics, Seki was transformed into a progressive."--BOOK JACKET.