The Japanese Trajectory
Modernization and Beyond

This volume investigates the real impact of modernisation upon the Japanese themselves.

Gavan McCormack (Edited by), Yoshio Sugimoto (Edited by)

9780521100755, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 January 2009

312 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.46 kg

This wide-ranging and innovative collection of essays addresses the Japanese dimension of one of the major sociological issues of our time: the nature of socio-economic modernisation and the emergence or otherwise of 'post-modern' industrial society. The rise to economic supremacy of post-war Japan constitutes an enormous challenge to that western orthodoxy which posits an essentially unilinear process of modernisation from the seventeenth century to the present day in which national and regional diversity has been eroded by the gradual social convergence of the major industrial powers. How does a society of contrasting social and cultural traditions fit within this pattern? Can one sensibly speak of Japanese society as 'modern' when such usage is effectively defined by other, western, presuppositions? In this volume an international team of contributors assesses these questions and investigates the real impact of modernisation upon the Japanese themselves.

Introduction: modernisation and beyond Gavan McCormack and Yoshio Sugimoto
Part I. Popular Culture: tradition and 'modernisation'
1. Sumo and popular culture Harold Bolitho
2. Osaka popular culture Tada Michitaro
3. New trends in Japanese popular culture Kogawa Tetsuo
Part II. Popular movements: alternative visions of 'modernisation'
4. Popular movements in modern Japanese history Irokawa Daikichi
5. For self and society Stephen Large
Part III. Uneven development and its discontents
6. The other side of Meiji Ian Inkster
7. Nuclear power and the labour movement Yuki Tanaka
8. Street labour markets, day labourers and the structure of oppression Matsuzawa Tessei
Part IV. Sex, politics and 'modernity'
9. The Japanese women's movement Ueno Chizuko
10. Male homosexuality as treated by Japanese women writers Tomoko Aoyama
11. Body politics Sandra Buckley
12. Division of labour Vera Mackie
Part V. 'Modernisation' and 'modernity'
13. Paths to modernity Johann Arnason
14. The concept of modernisation re-examined from the Japanese experience Kawamura Nozomu
Glossary
Index.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]