UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
School of History
V13129 Japan in War and Peace
Module Handbook
Photograph © Dr. Susan C. Townsend 2010
Released under:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike UK 2.0 Licence (BY-NC-SA).
Source: Supplied by University of Nottingham faculty member and copyright owner direct.
Autumn Semester 2009-10
Convenor:
20 Credits
Dr. Susan C. Townsend
Location: B6 Lenton Grove.
Consultation and Feedback hours: Mondays 4-5 and Thursdays 4-5
Assessed seminar consultation by appointment.
Tel: (0115) (95)15946
Email: sue.townsend@nottingham.ac.uk
2
Contents
Module Aims & Outcomes
3
Method of Assessment
3
Note on Attendance
4
Sources
4
Essays and Deadline
4
Structure of the Module/Films and Seminars
5
Seminar Report & Portfolio
5
A Note on Reading Lists/Preparatory Reading
6
Seminar and Lecture Programme at a Glance
7
Group Lists
8
Session One (24/9): Introduction
9
Session Two (01/10): Lecture/Documents
10
Session Three (08/10): Film
12
Session Four (15/10): Lecture/debate
14
Session Five (22/10): Film
16
Session Six (29/10): Lecture
18
Assessed Seminar
18
Session Seven (05/11): Lecture
20
Assessed Seminar
20
Session Eight (12/11): Lecture
23
Assessed Seminar
23
Reading Week 16-20 November
Session Nine (26/11): Lecture
25
Assessed Seminar
25
Session Ten (03/12): Film
Essay Questions
28
29
3
Module aims
This module consists of a detailed examination of the critical period in Japanese history from
the end of the Pacific War through the U.S. Occupation between 1945 and 1952 and recovery
in the 1960s and beyond. The lectures and seminars will examine the following topics:
Japan’s Road to War
The Japanese experience of war and defeat
The A-bomb in history and memory
The ‘Allied’ Occupation of Japan
The changing Japanese family
Japan’s economic recovery in the 1950s and 60s
The environmental costs of rapid economic development
The Asia-Pacific War in Japanese memory and popular culture
Module outcomes: The module provides opportunities for students to develop and
demonstrate knowledge and understanding, qualities, skills and other attributes in the
following areas:
Knowledge and understanding of: key problems and issues in the study of the AsiaPacific War and its aftermath; the methodology used by historians in the interrogation of
primary sources; the interaction between historiography and empirical evidence; the
interaction between history and memory.
Intellectual skills: Students should be able to: identify and evaluate critically key
problems in the study of Japan in war and peace and memories of the Asia-Pacific War
within an intellectual framework informed by current scholarship; locate, select and
interpret critically a variety of primary and secondary sources in this area; use the
information gained in the module to reflect critically upon the discipline and develop an
awareness of it as a constantly changing and evolving entity.
Professional and practical skills: Students should be able to: articulate both
knowledge and critical awareness of issues surrounding Japan in war and peace; develop
individual analyses and interpretations of data within the broad framework of current
historiography surrounding the topic.
Transferable skills: Students should be able to: demonstrate initiative and show some
evidence of original thinking in their essays and presentations; take responsibility for their
own learning in the preparation for seminars and coursework; communicate their findings
clearly and coherently in both written work and verbally.
Method of Assessment:
One 3,000 word essay: 40%
Seminar work: 20%
One two hour examination: 40%
You may not submit assessed essays on the same topic as your first year Learning History
project, second year EH essay or third year dissertation, and you must not substantially repeat
material from the coursework essay in the examination (but you may use materials and ideas
which have developed from your own assessed student-led seminar).
4
Attendance: It is the responsibility of all students to attend scheduled teaching, especially
where those are marked ‘compulsory’ in this handbook, and to undertake all formative and
summative assessments. A register will be taken for compulsory sessions such as seminars
and if you fail to attend without a valid reason you will receive letters warning you about the
consequences and, in the case of persistent non-attendance, you will be advised to see the
course convenor and/or your personal tutor. In the most serious cases, where the
majority of compulsory sessions have been missed and no explanation has been
forthcoming, you may be prevented from sitting the examination or a mark of 0%
may be awarded for assessments. The regulations for attendance and penalties for nonattendance can be found in the university’s Quality Manual at
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/quality-manual.study-regulations/attendance.htm and you are
advised to familiarise yourselves with these. See also the School’s Notes for Guidance.
Sources: One feature of this module is the use of film. Films are used in order to investigate
how the medium can be used to inform us, as historians, about contemporary social
commentary, philosophical and religious views, political and environmental issues and
collective memory. Additionally we examine the ways in which film shapes Japanese popular
culture and contributes to the formation of collective memory. In this module we examine two
film genres:

Cinema as social commentary, the ‘Noriko trilogy’ directed by Ozu and released
during or just after the American Occupation of Japan. These films comment on the
changing roles of women and the breakdown of the traditional family after the war.

Anime and the formation of Japanese popular culture and collective memory. The
Anime used here cover a range of issues including the idea of post-nuclear
apocalypse, Japanese views of the spiritual and natural world and Japan’s wartime
memories.
Please note: if you use the example of film in your essays, seminars or examination I
do NOT want a running commentary on the plot, but a critical evaluation of the way
in which the film addresses the historical and conceptual issues with which it is
concerned and its likely impact on public perception and collective memory.
I am indebted to my former student James Scagell for drawing my attention to suitable anime
and other sources.
Essays
Deadline:
Wednesday 2nd December 2009
Note: The essay must be word-processed and TWO copies must be posted in the School’s
letterbox either inside, or on the outside wall of Lenton Grove. Please note that you can
download the coversheet from the School’s website – undergraduate/current students –
complete it in accordance with the instructions and then place it in the letter box on the
outside wall, in order to save queuing on deadline day. It will be date stamped by the office
staff.
Marking of essays, like examinations, is anonymous, so make sure that you fold down and
staple the flap of the coversheet to cover your name. You must make sure that you append
your student number only to the title sheet and individual pages.
Each copy of the essay should be stapled separately and include your title sheet and
coversheet (one staple in top left). Both copies should be secured together by ONE paperclip.
Please do NOT use plastic document folders or ring-bound files. Note: your title sheet is
NOT the same as a coversheet.
Essays handed in late will incur a penalty of 5% for every working day. Extensions will
normally only be granted by the School’s Examinations Officer (Dr. Sharipova) in exceptional
circumstances and on receipt of written evidence of a problem before the deadline.
Following marking, one copy of each piece of coursework will be returned with comments and
the other kept for the External Examiner. Feedback is provided in written form and verbally
5
upon requesting an appointment or in my designated One-to-one Contact/Feedback Hours.
Additional feedback on your overall progress can also be provided by your Personal Tutor.
Structure of the module
Please note that because I will be showing three films during the course of the
module we have been allocated a longer slot in B13. This means that you will have
two and a half contact hours per week on this module to allow for this.
Our sessions consist of a mixture of lectures, film-showings and seminars (some of
them assessed) beginning at 9.30 every Thursday in B13, Lenton Grove.
Films
In addition to the lectures, three films Tokyo Story, Grave of the Fireflies and Princess
Mononoke will be shown in place of the usual lecture and seminar. Attendance is compulsory.
Seminars
This year there are c.14 students on the module. The seminars are all ONE and a half hours in
duration and take place after the lecture at 10.30. These are compulsory.
In the first two weeks the seminars will be conducted with the whole group and will be used to
familiarise you with key primary sources. In the third week the seminar will consist of a debate
among the whole group.
From week six we begin the first of FOUR assessed student-led seminars. The seminar will
normally be chaired by three members of the class and will include presentations of one paper
each of FIVE minutes duration and ONE or TWO exercises to engage the group.
Seminar agenda and process: As chairpersons you will be required to produce a finalised
agenda for the seminar by Thursday for the following Wednesday in order to give participants
time to prepare. It is essential, therefore, that you begin preparation where possible, at least
two weeks in advance. The agenda needs to be planned in consultation with me well before
the Thursday deadline and should include preparatory reading/viewing for members of the
group.
Allow ONE hour and FIFTEEN minutes for your seminar. You will need to get everyone
involved, so think how you might achieve this. Maybe you would like to involve the group in a
debate or split them into buzz groups to discuss specific questions which you have set using
the reading material available. Quizzes are generally not productive in such a short space of
time, so use brainstorming exercises instead. Make sure you leave time to discuss your
conclusions by allowing 10 minutes at the end. After the session you will be given peer
feedback and a 10 minute debriefing by me.
Documentary material for each seminar will also be provided for you to work with. All materials
which you need photocopying should be given to me well before the seminar. It may be a good
idea to distribute materials the week before the meeting.
Students other than the seminar leaders will also be expected to prepare thoroughly for each
seminar and base their reading (or viewing a film) on the pre-circulated agendas.
Seminar report portfolio: A 1,000 word seminar report must be submitted within ONE week
of the assessed seminar. This should include an outline of how the seminar was planned and
implemented, the main themes and issues discussed, a brief summary of your own
presentation and participation and the conclusions reached. Sources used must be footnoted
and you should include a reading list (not included in the word count). The portfolio should also
include the seminar agenda, materials used such as handouts (either written or powerpoint) or
OHPs and any posters etc.
6
Reading lists for seminars and essays.
Your reading lists/bibliographies should include the following elements:

Sources providing the historical context of the topics. These include journal articles,
book chapters, and encyclopaedia entries (NOT from Wikipedia). These may be
delivered electronically or via the internet (but make sure you check its provenance,
authenticity and accuracy, hence the prohibition on Wikipedia).

If you are using film you must provide a brief background of the director and the film’s
context. You may use sleeve notes for this or additional material provided on the DVD.
However, if using the latter make sure you use this material critically since the quality
of this information is very variable. Critical reviews of films or books, online (again,
check the provenance) or in journals and book chapters.

Journal articles/book chapters on the main historical and conceptual themes discussed
in the essay or the seminar.
The reading lists included below are not definitive and you are expected to track
down additional material on your own.
Preparatory Reading
It is recommended that you undertake some general reading in preparation for the lectures.
You will find the following useful, but there are a number of general histories of postwar Japan
in the library:
W. G. Beasley The Rise of Modern Japan Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1990
John Dower Japan in War and Peace: Essays on History, Race and Culture. Harper Collins,
1995 and Embracing Defeat
Janet Hunter The Emergence of Modern Japan: An Introductory History Since 1853: Longman,
1989.
Ann Waswo Modern Japanese Society 1868-1994 (1996)
Many of the articles cited in the reading list for the seminars will be found in Stephen S Large
(ed.) Showa Japan: Political, Economic and Social History 1926-1989. 4 vols., London:
Routledge, 1998.
Japanese Journals: The main journals are Japan Forum (Holdings in Hallward and available
electronically from http://wwwtandf.co.uk/journals/) You have to fiddle about with their
website but you can get articles in PDF
Journal of Asian Studies, Monumenta Japonica and the Journal of Japanese Studies are
available from JSTOR up to 2003 and online. For JJS select Project Muse to download articles.
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Seminar and Lecture Programme at a Glance
*Indicates compulsory attendance
One 24/9
*Introduction
*Video: The Decision to Drop
the Bomb
Two 01/10
Lecture: Japan’s Road to
War
*Seminar: Japan’s Decision for
War – Reading the Documents
Three
08/10
*Film: Grave of the Fireflies
Four 15/10
Lecture: Aftermath and
Occupation i: Reform
Five 22/10
*Film: Tokyo Story
Six 29/10
Lecture: Aftermath and
Occupation ii: Punishment
* Assessed Seminar: Why did
Japan go to war with the United
States in 1941?
Seven
05/11
Lecture: From Apocalypse
to Economic Miracle
*Assessed Seminar:
*Seminar: The Debate about
the A-bomb
Either: How successfully did the
U.S. democratise and
demilitarise Japan after the
war?
OR: Hirohito’s war
responsibility: A moderate dupe
of the military or war criminal?
Eight
12/11
Lecture: War, Memory and
Popular Culture
*Assessed Seminar: A Free
Ride? The American Occupation
and the Economic Miracle.
OR What were the
environmental costs of the
‘Miracle’?
Nine
Essays Q&A and Revision
*Assessed Seminar: The Abomb in Memory and Popular
Culture.
26/11
OR The War and Japanese
Memory
Ten 3/12
*Film: Princess Mononoke
8
Seminar Leaders for Assessed Seminars
Six
29/10
Seven
05/11
Eight
12/11
Nine
26/11
Why did Japan go to
war with the United
States in 1941?
How successfully did
the U.S. democratise
and demilitarise Japan
after the war? OR
Hirohito’s War
Responsibility: A
moderate dupe of the
military or a war
criminal?
A Free Ride? The
American Occupation
and the Economic
Miracle. OR What were
the environmental costs
of the ‘Miracle’?
The A-bomb in Memory
and Popular Culture. OR
The War and Japanese
Memory
9
Details of Sessions
Session One
24/9
Compulsory introduction for the whole group
Introduction
1 hr
Introduction to the module and choosing your assessed
seminars
Video
1 hr
plus
The Decision to Drop the Bomb
Followed by discussion (30 mins)
Session Two
01/10
Lecture and compulsory tutor-led seminar
Lecture
1 hr
Japan’s Road to War
Reading for the lecture
Do some general reading on the Pacific War, there are plenty of books available in the
Hallward Library. For example, the appropriate chapter in Marius B. Jansen The Making of
Modern Japan or the introductions to the document collections listed below.
Seminar
1hr 30
mins
Japan’s Decision for War: Reading the Documents.
(SCT)
Primary Sources: There are several volumes containing primary sources on this topic.
The most useful collection of both documents, commentaries and essays is:
Akira Iriye (ed.) Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War: A Brief History with
Documents and Essays (1999)

Imperial Conference, Nov. 5, 1941 (p. 14 -. Also in Lu and Ike below)

The Hull Memorandum, Nov. 17, 1941 (p. 42-)

The Hull Note (Outline of Proposed Basis for Agreement between the United
States and Japan) Nov. 26, 1941 (p. 74-)

Japan’s View of the Hull Note (p. 79 -)

Imperial Conference, Dec. 1, 1941 (p. 42-)

Cartoon ‘The Japanese take Manchuria’, p. 109
David J. Lu (ed.) A Documentary History: The Late Tokugawa Period to the Present.
2 vols. Vol. 2.:Ch. XIV, Doc. 5 The Tripartite Pact between Japan, Germany and Italy, 1940
Essential Reading
Akira Fujiwara, ‘The Road to Pearl Harbor’ in Stephen S. Large (ed.) Showa Japan:
Political, Economic and Social History 1926-1989 (1998) Vol I
Akira Iriye, ‘The Failure of Military Expansionism.’ in Large (ed.) Showa Japan, Vol. I
10
-- --The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, (1987)
-- --Power and Culture: The Japanese American War, 1941-1945, (1981).
Session Two (cont.)
Marshall, Jonathan. To have and to have not: Southeast Asian Raw Materials and the
Origins of the Pacific War, (1995).
James W. Morley (ed.) The Fateful Choice: Japan's Advance into Southeast Asia,
(1980)
-- -- Deterrent diplomacy: Japan, Germany and the USSR 1935-1940 (1976)
-- -- The Final Confrontation: Japan’s negotiations with the United States, 1941
(1994)
11
Session Two cont.
Further Reading/Viewing
Hiroyuki Agawa, The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy.
Translated by John Bester (1982).
Anthony Best Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 19361941, (1995).
R. Butow, Tojo & the Coming of the War (1961), Chap. 11 ‘The Decision for War’.
Richard B. Frank Downfall: The end of the Imperial Japanese Empire (1999)
Gerald Horne Race War: White Supremacy and the Japanese attack on the British Empire
(2004) [eBook]
Edwin Palmer Hoyt, Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict 1853-1952, (1986).
Leonard A. Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Warrior (1995)
Saburo Ienaga Japan's Last War: World War II and the Japanese 1931-1945.
Marius B. Jansen, Japan and China: from War to Peace, (1975).
G Mark R. Peattie in ‘Nanshin: The ‘Southward Advance,’ 1931-1941, as a Prelude to the
Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia’ in Peter Duus, Ramon Myers and Mark Peattie
(eds) The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931-1945 (1996)
Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy (eds.) Japan Examined: Perspectives on Modern
Japanese History (1983), Chap. 10 ‘Japan’s Foreign Policy in the 1930s: Search for
Autonomy or Naked Aggression?’
The World at War [digitally remastered videorecording]
12
Session Three
08/10
Compulsory film showing
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Dir. Isao Takahata from Studio Ghibli
The Asia-Pacific War is drawing to a close. Fourteen year-old Seita and his four-year-old
sister Setsuko are orphaned after their mother is killed during an air-raid by American
forces in Kobe, Japan. With no surviving relatives and their emergency funds and rations
depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
Review by Roger Ebert 19/03/ 2000 (Extract)
"Grave of the Fireflies" is an emotional experience so powerful that it forces a rethinking of animation.
Since the earliest days, most animated films have been "cartoons" for children and families. Recent
animated features such as "The Lion King," "Princess Mononoke" and "The Iron Giant" have touched
on more serious themes, and the "Toy Story" movies and classics like "Bambi" have had moments
that moved some audience members to tears. But these films exist within safe confines; they inspire
tears, but not grief. "Grave of the Fireflies" is a powerful dramatic film that happens to be animated,
and I know what the critic Ernest Rister means when he compares it to "Schindler's List" and says, "It
is the most profoundly human animated film I've ever seen."
Bring your hankies girls!
Reading on Japanese Cinema, Anime and Manga
Essential Reading:
Susan Napier Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary
Japanese animation (2001) [eBook] ch. 9 ‘No More Words: Barefoot Gen, Grave of the
Fireflies, and “Victim’s History”.’
Further Reading:
Joseph L. Anderson, and Donald Richie The Japanese film: art and industry (1982)
Mick Broderick (ed.) Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the nuclear image in
Japanese film (1996), esp. Freda Freiberg ‘Akira and the Postnuclear Sublime’
Steven T. Brown Cinema Anime (2006) [ebook]
Keiko McDonald Reading a Japanese film: Cinema in context (2006)
Markus Nornes, Japanese Documentary Film: The Meiji era through Hiroshima (2003) [eresource]
Film Studies/Theory/History (A small selection)
James Chapman Cinemas of the world: film and society from 1895 to the present (2003)
Susan Hayward Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (3rd. edn. 2006)
Marnie Hughes-Warrington History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film (2007)
Jill Nelmes, (ed.) Introduction to Film Studies (2007)
Robert A. Rosenstone Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to our Idea of History
(1995)
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith The Oxford History of World Cinema (1996)
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Session Four
15/10
Lecture and compulsory debate
Lecture
1hr
Aftermath and Occupation i: Reform
Reading for the lecture:
The most readable book on the Occupation is John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in
the Aftermath of World War II (1999), but any of the general histories of the
occupation listed under the seminar reading will be fine.
Seminar
1hr
30mins
The debate about the A-bomb: This house moves
that the dropping of the atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was
justified.
For
Against
Jury
Primary Sources
Stimson, Henry L. ‘The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb', Harper's Magazine (Feb 1947):
97-107. (A perspective on American thinking at the time)
Essential Reading
Gar Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam: the use of the atomic bomb
and the American confrontation with Soviet power (1985 expanded and revised edn.)
(The classic revisionist account)
--.--The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, (1995).
Bernstein, B. J. 'Roosevelt, Truman and the Atomic Bomb: A Reinterpretation', Political
Science Quarterly 90, 1 (Spring 1975): 23-70.
--.-- 'Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History', Diplomatic History 17, 1
(Winter 1993): 35-75.
14
--.-- 'Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender' Diplomatic History
19, 2 (Spring 1995)
Herbert Feis, Japan Subdued: the Atomic Bomb and the End of the War in the Pacific,
(1961)
Paul Fussell, Thank God for the Atomic Bomb, and Other Essays (1988)
Stephen Harper, Miracle of Deliverance: The case for the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki (1985)
Michael A.Hogan, (ed.) Hiroshima in History and Memory, (1996)
Martin J. Sherwin ‘Hiroshima and Modern Memory: The New A-bomb Debate’ (1981)
Photocopy held in Hallward Library (Ask at desk)
Further Reading
Alperovitz, et. al. 'Correspondence, Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the
Bomb' International Security 16, 3 (Winter 1991/92): 205-21.
Dockrill, Saki, (ed.) From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima; the Second World War in the Pacific,
1941-45, (1994)
Michael Walzer Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations ,
1992 Ch. 16 ‘Supreme Emergency’ pp 251-268, esp. ‘The Limits of Calculation:
Hiroshima: pp 263 –8
Messer, B. J. 'New Evidence on Truman's Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb', Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists (August 1985): 50-56.
Seldon, Mark ‘The United States, Japan, and the Atomic Bomb’ in Stephen S. Large (ed.)
Showa Japan: Political, Economic and Social History 1926-1989 (1998), Vol. I
Walker, S. ‘The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update', Diplomatic
History 14: 97-114
Internet Resources
Title: Truman Presidential Digital Archives
URL: http://www.whistlestop .org/archive.htm
(A site with links to documents pertaining to the Truman administration)
Title: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
URL: http://www.whistlestop.org/study_collections/bomb/large/bomb.htm
(Includes Online Book: Truman’s Decision Process (Truman and the Bomb – A
Documentary History); Interim Committee (An advisory committee formed by Secretary
of War Henry Stimson to study war-time use of the atomic bomb)
Films
Barefoot Gen See internet resources.
Sources relating to film (See also reading lists for session five)
Mick Broderick (ed.) Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the nuclear image in
Japanese film (1996)
Abe Mark Nornes and Yukio Fukushima The Japan/America film wars: World War II
propaganda and its cultural contexts (1994)
Anime
Howl’s Moving Castle; Akira; Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
15
Session Five
22/10
Compulsory film viewing for the whole group.
Ozu Yasujiro dir. Tokyo Story (1953)
‘A tale of generational conflict when a middle-aged couple visit their married children in
the bustling metropolis of post-war Tokyo’.
From a review: ‘To experience a Yasujiro Ozu film is to immerse in the reserved, quiet
grace of a disappearing traditional culture’.
‘There are no external catalysts in the film, no psychological deconstruction of a
dysfunctional family. It is a story about generational fractures - culture, tradition, and
people - left in the wake of modernization and consuming self-absorption.’
Tokyo Story demands little from the viewer, except to sit back and absorb the sweeping,
beautiful images that gradually unfold before us towards its muted, heartbreaking
conclusion, and from it, derive meaning for our own frenetic existence.
Preparation: Books
About the director
David Bordwell, Ozu and the poetics of cinema (1988)
Donald Richie, Ozu (1974)
DVD
Tokyo Story DVD/Video Recording (Hallward Library DVD PN1997.T65). This
film is part of the so-called ‘Noriko Trilogy’.
16
Session Five (cont.)
Further Reading on Japanese Cinema
Joseph L. Anderson, and Donald Richie The Japanese film: art and industry (1982)
Gregory Barrett Archetypes in Japanese Film: the sociopolitical and religious significance
of the principal heroes and heroines (1989)
Audie Bock Japanese film directors (1978)
Darrell W. Davis, Japaneseness: Monumental style, national identity, Japanese film
(1996)
Keiko McDonald Reading a Japanese film: Cinema in context (2006)
Isolde Standish, A New History of Japanese Cinema: A century of narrative film (2005)
Reading on women in post-war Japan
Primary Sources
Letters from Sachiko: A Japanese Woman’s View of Life from the Land of the
Economic Miracle (1984)
Essential Reading
Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda (eds.) Japanese Women: new
feminist perspectives on the past, present, and future (1995)
Janet Hunter (ed.) Japanese Women Working, (1993):
Ch. 6 Barbara Molony ‘Equality versus difference: the Japanese debate over
‘motherhood protection, 1915-50’ 122-180
Further Reading
Amy Beth Borovoy, The too-good wife: alcohol, codependency, and the politics of
nurturance in postwar Japan (2005) [eBook]
Joyce Gelb, Gender politics in Japan and the United States: Comparing women’s
movements, rights and politics (2003) [eBook]
Irena Powell, Writers and Society in Modern Japan (Kodansha: Tokyo, 1983)
Nancy Rosenberger, Gambling with virtue: Japanese women and the search for self
in a changing nation (2001) [eBook]
Sharon Sievers, Flowers in Salt: the Beginning of Feminist Consciousness in Modern
Japan (1986)
Hiroko Tomida and Gordon Daniels (eds.) Japanese Women: Emerging from
Subservience, (1868-1945)(2005):
Chapter 5 ‘Gender, Economics and Industrialization: Approaches to the
Economic History of Japanese Women, 1868-1945’ 119-144
17
Session Six
29/10
Lecture and assessed seminar
Lecture
1 hr
Aftermath and Occupation ii: Punishment
Reading for the Lecture:
The most important book to read (apart from Dower’s Embracing Defeat) is Richard
Minear, Victors’ Justice: the Tokyo War Crimes Trial (1971)
Assessed Seminar
1hr 30
mins
Why did Japan go to war with the United States
in 1941?
Seminar Leaders
Primary Sources
Nobutaka Ike (trans and ed.) Japan’s Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy
Conferences (1967) (Contains a complete record of the relevant Imperial
Conferences). These documents are absolutely crucial in analysing Japan’s decision
for war in 1941. They are divided into three sections: pt. One ‘The decision to move
south’ from mid-April 18 to early July 1941; pt. Two ‘Prepare for war now, but
continue to negotiate’ (July-September 1941); pt. Three ‘ “The time for war will not
come later”.

66th Liaison Conference, Nov. 1 1941
Elizabeth P. Tsunoda, (ed.) Japan and America, c.1930-1955: ‘The Pacific War and
the occupation of Japan. Series 2, The O’Ryan mission to Japan and occupied China,
1940: The Whitney Diary, correspondence & papers of Dr. Whitney, General O’Ryan
and other members of the economic and trade mission.’
Essential Reading
Akira Fujiwara, ‘The Road to Pearl Harbor’ in Stephen S. Large (ed.) Showa Japan:
Political, Economic and Social History 1926-1989 (1998) Vol I
Akira Iriye, ‘The Failure of Military Expansionism.’ in Large (ed.) Showa Japan, Vol. I
-- --The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, (1987)
-- --Power and Culture: The Japanese American War, 1941-1945, (1981).
Marshall, Jonathan. To have and to have not: Southeast Asian Raw Materials and the
Origins of the Pacific War, (1995).
James W. Morley (ed.) The Fateful Choice: Japan's Advance into Southeast Asia,
(1980)
-- -- Deterrent diplomacy: Japan, Germany and the USSR 1935-1940 (1976)
-- -- The Final Confrontation: Japan’s negotiations with the United States, 1941
(1994)
18
Session Six cont.
Further Reading
Hiroyuki Agawa, The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy.
Translated by John Bester (1982).
Anthony Best Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 19361941, (1995).
R. Butow, Tojo & the Coming of the War (1961), Chap. 11 ‘The Decision for War’.
Edwin Palmer Hoyt, Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict 1853-1952, (1986).
Leonard A. Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Warrior (1995)
Saburo Ienaga Japan's Last War: World War II and the Japanese 1931-1945.
Marius B. Jansen, Japan and China: from War to Peace, (1975).
G. Prange, Pearl Harbor The Verdict of History (1991)
The World at War [digitally remastered videorecording]
19
Session Seven
05/11
Lecture and assessed seminar
Lecture
1 hr
From Apocalypse to Miracle: The Road to Economic
Superpower
Reading for the Lecture
Any general history of post-war Japan
Assessed Seminar
1hr 30
mins
How successfully did the United States
democratise and demilitarise Japan after the
War? OR Hirohito’s War Responsibility: A mode
dupe of the military class or a war criminal?
Seminar Leaders
Occupation: Primary Sources
David J. Lu, (ed.) A Documentary History: The Late Tokugawa Period to the Present.
2 vols. Vol. 2.:Ch. XV, Doc. 1 ‘Initial Postsurrender Policy for Japan, 1945’
--.--Doc. 2 ‘Emperor Hirohito’s Rescript Disavowing His Own Divinity, 1946’
-- --Doc 4 ‘Excerpts from the Shōwa Constitution, 1946’
-- --Doc. 6 ‘MacArthur on the Japanese Constitution, 1946’
Ch. XV, Doc. 9 ‘Abolition of State Shintō’
Sodei Rinjirō and John Junkerman (eds) Dear General MacArthur: Letters from the
Japanese during the American Occupation (2006)
Occupation: Essential Reading
John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (1999)
(Various)
Richard B. Finn, Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida and Postwar Japan. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992.
--.--The Allied Occupation of Japan in Retrospect (1996) [Pamphlet]
Grant K. Goodman, America’s Japan: the first year (2005) [eBook]
Shōichi Koseki The Birth of Japan’s Postwar Constitution (1998)
Ray A. Moore, ‘Reflections on the Occupation of Japan’ in Large (ed.) Showa Japan
Vol?
Ray A. Moore and Donald L. Robinson Partners for democracy: crafting the new
Japanese state under MacArthur (2002) [eBook]
M. Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan (1985)
Schonberger, Howard. Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan
1945-1952, 1989. Chap. 3 ‘T. A. Bisson: The Limits of Reform in Occupied Japan’.
20
Robert E. Ward and Sakamoto Yoshikazu Democratizing Japan: the allied occupation
1945-52 (1987)
Occupation: Further Reading
Christopher Aldous The Police in Occupation Japan: control, corruption and resistance
to reform (1997)
Richard J. Barnet, Allies: America, Europe, Japan Since the War, (1984).
Peter Bates, Japan and the British Commonwealth Occupation Force 1946-52,
(1993).
Roger Buckley, Occupation Diplomacy: Britain, the United States and Japan 19451952, (1982).
John Dower, Japan in War and Peace: Essays on History, Race and Culture (1995).
Ch. 1 ‘The Useful War’ Chap. 5 ‘Occupied Japan and the Cold War in Asia.’
J. Fukui, ‘Postwar Politics, 1945-1973’ in Peter Duus (ed.) Cambridge History of
Japan. 6 vols. Vol. VI
Dale Hellegers, We, the Japanese People: world War II and the origins of the
Japanese Constitution (2002) [eBook]
Kersten, Rikki Democracy in postwar Japan: Maruyama Masao and the search for
autonomy (1996)
Peter Lowe, Containing the Cold War in East Asia: British Policies towards Japan,
China and Korea, 1948-53 (1997).
Michael Molasky, The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and
Memory (2001)
Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation
(1997) [eBook]
H. Wray ‘The fall of moral education and the rise and decline of civics education and
social studies in occupied and independent Japan’ Japan Forum 12:1 (2000)
Robert Ward, (Ed.) Political Development in Modern Japan, 1968. Chap. 13
‘Reflections on the Allied Occupation and Planned Political Change in Japan’.
The Occupation of Japan: The Grass Roots; the proceedings of the eighth symposium
sponsored by The General Douglas MacArthur Foundation, Old Dominion University,
The MacArthur Memorial 7-8 November 1991 ed. by William F. Nimmo (1992) On
Order
Hirohito’s War Responsibility
Primary Sources
David J. Lu, (ed.) A Documentary History: The Late Tokugawa Period to the Present.
2 vols. Vol. 2.:-
--.--Ch. XV, Doc. 3 ‘Emperor Not Guilty of War Crimes, 1946’
The Tokyo major war crimes trial: the records of the International Military Tribunal for
the Far East: with an authoritative commentary and comprehensive guide. Compiled and
edited by R. John Pritchard (2004) 135 Volumes.
Bernard Röling Tokyo trial and beyond: reflections of a peacemonger (1993) (memoirs of
21
one of the trial judges)
Essential Reading
Behr, Edward, Hirohito: Behind the Myth (1989)
Bergamini, David Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy (1971)
Herb Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (2000)
--.-- ‘The Showa Emperor’s Monologue and the Problem of War Responsibility’
Journal of Japanese Studies, 18:2 (1992) [JSTOR]
Richard Minear, Victors’ Justice: the Tokyo War Crimes Trial (1971)
Stephen S. Large, ‘Emperor Hirohito and Early Showa Japan.’ Stephen S. Large (ed.)
Showa Japan
--.-- Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan: A Political Biography, (1993).
Wetzler, Peter. Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in
Prewar Japan, 1998
Further Reading
Omer Bartov, A. Grossman and M. Nolan (eds.) Crimes of war: guilt and denial in the
twentieth century (2003)
Arnold Brackman, The Other Nuremburg: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (1987)
James Clayton, The Years of MacArthur: Vol. III Triumph and Disaster, 1945-1964
(1985)
John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (1999) Ch.
15 ‘Victor’s Justice, Loser’s Justice’ and 16 ‘What do you tell the dead when you
lose?’
Hosoya, Chihiro et. al. (eds) The Tokyo Trial: An International Symposium (1986)
Ienaga, Saburo. Japan's Last War: World War II and the Japanese 1931-1945. Chap.
9 ‘The Horrors of War
Pritchard, R. John. ‘The International Military Tribunal for the Far East and Its
Contemporary Resonances.’ In Showa Japan: Political, Economic and Social History
1926-1989, edited by Stephen S. Large. London: Routledge, 1998.
Takahashi Tetsuya, ‘The Emperor Shōwa standing at ground zero’ in Japan Forum,
15:1 (2003). See reply by R. Kersten ‘Revisionism, reaction and the ‘symbol
emperor’ in post-war Japan’.
Toshiyuki Tanaka Hidden Horrors: Japanese war crimes in World War II (1998)
22
Session Eight
12/11
Lecture and assessed seminar
Lecture
1 hr
War, Memory and Popular Culture
Reading for the Lecture
See the list below for the seminar
Anime
Princess Mononoke; Laputa: The Castle in the Sky; Howl’s Moving Castle; Nausicaa
of the Valley of the Wind
Assessed Seminar
1hr 30
mins
Either: A Free Ride? The American Occupation
and the Economic Miracle
Or: What were the environmental costs of the
‘economic miracle’?
Seminar Leaders
Primary Sources: The Economic Miracle
David J. Lu, (ed.) A Documentary History: The Late Tokugawa Period to the Present. 2
vols. Vol. 2.:-
Ch. XV, Doc. 10 ‘Summary of a Report of the U. S. Education Mission 1946’
-- --Doc 12 ‘12 Excerpts from SCAP Directive on Rural Land Reform, 1945’
-- --Doc. 13 ‘Prime Minister Yoshida on Agricultural Reform, 1945-52’
--.--Doc. 14 ‘SCAP Program for Economic Stabilization, 1948’
Ch. XVI: See Documents under ‘the 1955 System’ pp 506-512
Ch. XVII Doc. ‘1 Plan to Double Individual Income, December 27 1960’
--.--Doc. 2 ‘Background for Income Doubling Plan, November 1, 1960’
--.—Doc. 5 ‘It’s All in the Family – Sony’s Management Style, 1986’
‘Basic problems for postwar reconstruction of the Japanese economy: translation of a
report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Special Survey Committee, September 1946
(1977)’ HC462
Essential Reading: The Economic Miracle
Mary C. Brinton, Women and the Economic Miracle: Gender and work in postwar
Japan (1993)
Ian Buruma, Inventing Japan: From Empire to Economic Miracle (2005)
Chalmers Johnson MITI and the Japanese “Miracle”. (1982)
Richard B. Finn, Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida and Postwar Japan (1992).
--.--The Allied Occupation of Japan in Retrospect (1996) [Pamphlet]
Aaron Forsberg, America and the Japanese Miracle: the Cold War Context of Japan’s
postwar economic revival, 1950-1960 (2000) [eBook]
M. Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan (1985)
23
Further Reading: The Economic Miracle
Richard J. Barnet, Allies: America, Europe, Japan Since the War, (1984).
Sheldon M. Garon, ‘The Imperial Bureaucracy and Labor Policy in Postwar Japan’ in
Large (ed.) Showa Japan (1998).
Andrew Graham and Anthony Seldon Government and Economies in the Postwar
World: Economic Polices and Comparative Performance, 1945-85 (1990) [eBook]
Robert Guillain The Japanese Challenge (1970)
William K. Tabb The postwar Japanese system: cultural economic and economic
transformation (1995) [eBook]
Ezra Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for Americans (1979)
John Welfield, An empire in Eclipse: Japan in the postwar American Alliance System
(1988)
Kōzō Yamamura, Economic Policy in Postwar Japan: Growth versus economic
democracy (1967)
Environmental costs: Reading
Almeida, Paul and Linda Stearns ‘Political Opportunities and Local Grassroots
Environmental Movements: The Case of Minamata’, Social Problems, 45 (1998)
Fisher, Charles and John Sargeant ‘Japan’s Ecological Crisis’ The Geographical
Journal, 141, 1975
George, Timothy S. Minamata: pollution and the struggle for democracy in postwar
Japan (2001)
Mason Robert J. ‘Whither Japan’s Environmental Movement? An Assessment of
Problems and Prospects at the National Level’ Pacific Affairs 72:2 (Summer, 1999)
187-207 (Useful English bibliography in footnotes)
Reed, Steven ‘Environmental Politics: Some Reflections Based on the Japanese Case’
Comparative Politics, 13 (1981)
Strong, Kenneth Ox Against the Storm: A Biography of Tanaka Shozo-Japan’s First
Conservationist Pioneer (1995)
Tsutsui, William ‘Landscapes in the dark valley: Toward an environmental history of
wartime Japan’ Environmental History (April 2003)
Internet Resources
http://www.expo2005.com/ Official website of the Expo 2005 Aichi.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/japanenv.html Official statement about the state of
Japan’s environment. Gives a useful post-war historical overview. (6 pages)
http://www.env.go.jp/en/nature/nps/parks_list.html List of National and Quasi-national
Parks in Japan.
Japanese Ministry of the Environment http://www.env.go.jp/en/index.html
There are many other resources available about the Minamata incident etc.
24
Reading Week 16th – 20th November
Session Nine
26/11
Q & A: Essays and
Revision
1 hr
Assessed Seminar
1hr 30
mins
Q&A Session and assessed seminar
Either: The A-bomb: Memory and Popular
Culture. Or: The War and Japanese Memory
Seminar Leaders
The A-bomb: Memory and Popular Culture
Primary Sources
Takashi Nagai We of Nagasaki: the story of survivors in an atomic wasteland (1951)
Mark and Kyoku Seldon (eds.) The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
(1989)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the physical, medical and social effects of the atomic bombing
(A report compiled by the Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused
by the Atomic Bombs in Hirsohima and Nagasaki) (1981). This book is in the George
Green Library at QP82.2.R3 HIR
Frank Gibney (ed.) Sensō: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War: Letters to the Editor
of Asahi Shinbun. (1995)
Essential Reading
Susan Napier Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary
Japanese animation (2001) [eBook] ch. 11 ‘Waiting for the End of the World: Apocalyptic
Identity.’
Bosworth, R. J. R. Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second
World War. (1993)
Michael A. Hogan, (ed.) Hiroshima in History and Memory (1996)
Igarashi Yoshikuni Bodies of Memory: Narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture,
1945-1970 (2000)
Lawrence Lifschultz, and Kai Bird, (eds.) Hiroshima's Shadow, (1998)
James N Yamazaki, Children of the Atomic Bomb: An American physician’s memoir of
Nagasaki, Hiroshima and the Marshall Islands (1995)
Further Reading
M. Broderick, Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the nuclear image in
Japanese film (1996)
Laura Hein and Mark Seldon (eds) Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan,
Germany and the United States (2000)
Hachiya, Michihiko Hiroshima Diary: the journal of a Japanese physician, August 6-
25
September 30, 1945: fifty years later (1995)
Hein, L., and M. Seldon, eds. Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural
Conflict in the Nuclear Age. (1996)
James L. Henderson Hiroshima (1974)
Weiner, M. ‘The Representation of Absence and the Absence of Representation: Korean
Victims of the Atomic Bomb’ in M. Weiner (ed.) Japan's Minorities: The Illusion of
Homogeneity, (1997)
Mari Yamamoto, Grassroots pacifism in post-war Japan: the rebirth of a nation (2004)
Internet sites
http://www.corneredangel.com/amwess/acad_1.html
Anime
Howl’s Moving Castle; Akira; Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Subculture, popular culture and Otaku
Takashi Murakami (ed.) Little Boy and the Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture
(2005)
This is the book of an exhibition organised by one of Japan’s most famous artists,
Takashi Murakami. It demonstrates the importance of Otaku (‘geeks’ or ‘subculture
fanatics’) on Japanese cultural expressions of the impact of the atomic bombing.
See:
‘Foreword’, pp. vi-vii
Tarō Okamoto: ‘Art is Explosion’ various plates to p. 8 esp. Mushroom cloud; Hiroshima;
Godzilla; Article 9 of the Constitution.
See especially the Essays: Takashi Murakami ‘Earth in my Window’, pp 99-150 in which
he considers Japan’s ‘superflat’ culture, particularly the film industry in the light of the
trauma of war. He considers Howl’s Moving Castle as ‘defining’ the Japanese in 2005 and
discusses Akira as well as other anime. Also included here are poems about the Enola
Gay and the A-Bombing; Noi Sawaragi ‘On the Battlefield of “Superflat” Subculture and
Art in Postwar Japan, pp. 186-208
Dominic Strinati An introduction to theories of popular culture (2nd. Edn. 2004)
Reading on War and Memory
Brook, Timothy (ed.) Documents on the Rape of Nanking (2000)
Chang, I. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997)
Fogel, Joshua A. (ed.) The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography (2000)
Honda Katsuichi The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan’s National
Shame (2000)
Ienaga, S. ‘The Glorification of War in Japanese Education.’ International Security 18,
no. 3 (1993/4).
Kersten, Rikki ‘Neo-nationalism and the ‘Liberal School of History’ Japan Forum 11
(2) 1999: 191-203
Rose, Caroline ‘The Textbook Issue: Domestic Sources of Japan’s Foreign Policy’, Japan
Forum 11(2) 1999: 205-216
26
Electronic Sources
Title: Association for the Advancement of the Liberal (unbiased) View of History
(jiyū-shugi shikan kenkyūkai) Home Page
URL: http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/
[A site with links to view the main arguments of Fujioka Nobukatsu and other
revisionists]
Further Reading
Bartov, Omar et. al. Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century (2003)
Buruma, Ian. The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan. London:
Vintage, 1995.
T. Fujitani, Geoffrey M. White and Lisa Yoneyama, Perilous Memories: the AsiaPacific Wars (2000)
Gong, Gerrit W. (ed.) Remembering and forgetting: The Legacy of War and Peace in Asia
(1996)
Hicks, G. Japan's War Memories: Amnesia or Concealment? (1997)
Sugihara, Seishiro Between Incompetence and Culpability: Assessing the Diplomacy of
Japan’s Foreign Ministry from Pearl Harbor to Potsdam Trans. Norman Hu. (1997) Ch. 6
‘Mr. Prime Minister, What do you think of the accounts in These Textbooks?’ pp. 113-140
Tam, Y-H. ‘To Bury the Unhappy Past: The Problem of Textbook Revision in Japan’ East
Asian Library Journal VII, no. 1 (1994)
Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, 1998.
White, G. M. ‘Memory Wars: The Politics of Remembering the Asia-Pacific War’ Asia
Pacific Issues, no. 21, (1995)
27
Essay Deadline Wednesday 02 December
Session Ten
3/12
Compulsory Film Showing
Princess Mononoke dir. Hayao Miyazaki from Studio Ghibli
Review by Roger Ebert Oct 29, 1999
I go to the movies for many reasons. Here is one of them. I want to see wondrous sights not available
in the real world, in stories where myth and dreams are set free to play. Animation opens that
possibility, because it is freed from gravity and the chains of the possible. Realistic films show the
physical world; animation shows its essence. Animated films are not copies of "real movies," are not
shadows of reality, but create a new existence in their own right. True, a lot of animation is insipid, and
insulting even to the children it is made for. But great animation can make the mind sing.
Hayao Miyazaki is a great animator, and his "Princess Mononoke" is a great film. Do not allow
conventional thoughts about animation to prevent you from seeing it. It tells an epic story set in
medieval Japan, at the dawn of the Iron Age, when some men still lived in harmony with nature and
others were trying to tame and defeat it. It is not a simplistic tale of good and evil, but the story of how
humans, forest animals and nature gods all fight for their share of the new emerging order. It is one of
the most visually inventive films I have ever seen.
Essential Reading:
Susan Napier Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary
Japanese animation (2001) [eBook] ch. 10 ‘Princess Mononoke: Fantasy, the Feminine,
and the Myth of “Progress”.’
Steven T. Brown Cinema Anime (2006) [ebook]
28
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. With reference to the records of the 1941 Policy Conference (Ike), examine the role of
ONE of the following government leaders in the policy discussions between July and
December 1941 which led ultimately to war with the U.S.A.:

Prince Konoe Fumimaro

Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori

Prime Minister Tojo Hideki
2. Were the Tokyo War Crimes Trials seriously flawed by the failure to indict Emperor
Hirohito as a war criminal?
3. “Despite intense pressure on a vulnerable topography, the people of Japan have done
less to ravage their land and bring ruin upon it than have many other societies past and
present that have been favoured by a less dense population and more benign terrain”
(Conrad Totman). Discuss.
4. “Movies assist audiences in negotiating major changes in identity; they carry them
across difficult periods of cultural transition in such a way that a more or less coherent
national identity remains in place, spanning the gaps and fissures that threaten to
disrupt its movement and to expose its essential disjointedness.” (John Belton Movies
and Mass Culture) Discuss this statement in relation to any TWO Japanese anime or
films.
5. Examine the tensions between history and memory in ONE of the following
contemporary issues:
a) The Comfort Women
b) The Rape of Nanking
c) The Yasukuni Shrine
6. Analyse Ozu’s critique of the postwar Japanese family in his ‘Noriko Trilogy’ films.
7. What role did MITI (Ministry for International Trade and Industry) play in achieving the
‘Miracle’ economy in the 25 years after Japan’s defeat?
8. Examine government responses to the ‘big four’ pollution cases of the 1960s and 70s.
9. To what extent did the Occupation period constitute a distinct break in the history of
modern Japan?
29