The Japanese in war and peace, 1942-48 : : selected documents from a translator's in-tray / / Ian Nish.

• Author: Nish, Ian Hill.
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Brill eBook titles
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (484 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

The author was a member of the British Occupation Force in Japan as part of the Allied Occupation following the Asia-Pacific War. During the years he was there, 1946–48, he collected a number of documents which throw light on the attitudes of the Japanese people in the last two critical years of the war and the equally critical first two years of the peace. Following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, never has a nation been forced to switch so abruptly from the extreme views of resistance in early 1945 to the need for accommodation with the occupying United States armies. These materials, some reproduced in facsimile, which include a miscellaneous assortment of personal documents, propaganda material, military memoranda and teaching aids, cover a wide spectrum of Japanese thinking. Since the writers are generally drawn from the lower rungs of society they provide an insight into the attitudes of citizens who are often neglected in accounts of the Allied Occupation thereby providing scholars, researchers and those with a general interest in Occupation history with a valuable new dimension to our understanding of this period and its impact on the Japanese nation.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- War: Civilian Reflections -- War: Military Perspectives -- War: To End or Not to End -- Peace: Sliding the Shōji -- Peace: The Grassroots of Occupation -- Some Concluding Remarks -- Notes -- Facsimile of synopsis of SEAC propaganda leaflet Gunjin Gahō -- Bibliography -- English-language Teaching Materials The School Weekly (1940–3) -- Greater East Asia War Graphic II (May-December 1942) -- Nippon Times Weekly: ‘Science and Technique in Wartime Japan’ (16 September 1943) -- Excerpts from Prince Konoe’s Peace Memorandum (14 February 1945) -- Japanese Atomic Bomb Protest (10 August 1945) -- BCOF Non-fraternization Order, 20 February 1946 -- Kure meeting on Prospects for Overseas Trade, 1947 -- Why Is Patriotism Wrong? 1947 -- W.G. Beasley: ‘Personal Reminiscences of the Early Months of the Occupation: Yokosuka and Tokyo, September 1945 – March 1946’ -- Index.