Studies over modern Japan Reeks

In 1942, Hugh Borton, a 39-year-old assistant professor of Japanese history, was called to serve in the State Department, quickly becoming a key architect of U.S. policy toward post-war Japan. This work, drawn from Borton's personal papers, offers an intimate portrait of a man instrumental in defining unconditional surrender for Japan, retaining the Emperor, and shaping Japan's post-war constitution. It illuminates the complexities of U.S. post-war Japanese policy and the often-contentious relationships among the various agencies involved in its formulation and execution. Borton, author of Japan's Modern Century and director of Columbia University's East Asian Institute, dedicated his life to fostering academic, cultural, and humanitarian ties between Japan and the United States. The book includes a detailed table of contents, covering Borton's early life, experiences in Japan with the American Friends Service Committee, his academic journey, wartime service, and his significant contributions to post-war planning and policy-making. It also reflects on his later years, including his return to academia and challenges faced as a college president, providing a comprehensive view of his impact on Japanese studies and U.S.-Japan relations.

Focusing on Japan's evolving quest for national security, the book examines its historical journey from early internationalism to totalitarianism and subsequent conflict in the Pacific. It highlights the shifts in foreign policy, illustrating Japan's transition from reliance on military force for preservation to economic self-interest as a Cold War ally of the U.S. Ultimately, it portrays a contemporary Japan that is moving away from unarmed neutrality, reasserting its security independence in the post-Cold War Asian landscape.

The book explores the transformative period of the Meiji Restoration in Japan, focusing on the domain of Choshu and its pivotal role in modernizing the nation between 1853 and 1868. Historian Albert M. Craig challenges previous interpretations that highlight lower samurai and merchants as the main drivers of change, instead emphasizing the importance of traditional values and the contributions of the old society in shaping the new Meiji state. This study offers a fresh perspective on Japan's transition to a centralized bureaucratic state and industrial economy.

The Web of Power illustrates the central importance of international development policy to national economic and strategic security. Kozo Kato's meticulous analysis of Japanese and German international cooperation policy overturns the myth of Japan and Germany's convergent development strategies, revealing that each state's policy for fostering interdependence has been shaped by markedly different domestic political agendas. Japanese development policy moved to embrace international cooperation as a means of pursuing national interests while Germany--fearing the economic risks and political costs of a global-scope approach--restricted its development strategy to Europe. This work will be of great interest to political scientists, economists, and scholars of international relations who wish to better understand, using Japanese multinationalism and German regionalism as case studies, the fluctuating dynamics of modern economic forces.