Japan’s American Interlude

Front Cover
Pickle Partners Publishing, Jan 12, 2017 - History - 224 pages
How did the Japanese themselves respond to the American occupation? How were the sweeping reforms—political, social, and economic—of SCAP’s program received? How permanent was their effect, and why did some succeed and others fail completely? How successful in the long view was the democratization induced by MacArthur’s “artificial revolution”? And what tendencies existing in fundamental Japanese attitudes and history might account for this peculiar success?

Kazuo Kawai, Japanese-born and educated in America, a political scientist and journalist, brings his unique experience and knowledge to bear on these questions. The result is a book which tells the story of the American occupation of Japan from the Japanese point of view.

“This book deals with the American interlude in the history of Japan during which time that country was not only occupied by American troops and politically controlled by American officials but was subjected to almost every conceivable variety of American influence. It does not attempt to tell the story of the Occupation itself, for that story has already been told many times by Americans who, as participants or close observers, were in a position to tell it well. Instead, this work deals only with selected controversial aspects of the Japanese reaction to American influence during the Occupation period.”—Kazuo Kawai, Preface
 

Contents

Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER IAttitudes
CHAPTER IIThe Character of the Occupation 16
CHAPTER IIIThe Background for Democratization 28
CHAPTER IVThe Constitution 39
CHAPTER VThe Emperor 52
CHAPTER VIPolitical Reorganization 65
CHAPTER VIIThe Location of Political Power 78
CHAPTER VIIIEconomic Reforms 92
CHAPTER IXLabor Agriculture and Economic Recovery 109
CHAPTER XThe New Basic Education 124
CHAPTER XIHigherEducation and Mass Education 136
The Process of Democratization
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 167
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 172

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2017)

Kazuo Kawai (1904-1963) was a Japanese-born lecturer in Far Eastern history at Stanford University, California, a former newspaper editor and author.

Born in 1904 in Tokyo, Japan, his family moved to the United States in 1908, where his father became the dean of Japanese Christian ministers in Los Angeles. He was educated at Stanford University in California, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1926 and a Masters degree in 1928. He received his Ph.D. in history from the same institution in 1938.

In 1932 he began lecturing in history and geography at the University of California in Los Angeles, bringing the “East to the West” for almost ten years. He left in 1941 and moved to Japan to become an editor of the Tokyo Nippon Times. He remained there throughout the World War II years, and returned to the United States in 1949. He joined the Political Science department staff at Stanford University in California in 1951 as a visiting lecturer, became an associate professor in 1953, and a full professor in 1959.

Professor Kawai passed away on May 4, 1963.

Bibliographic information