First Published in 1987. Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945 was an unprecedented event in Japanese history. The shift from the life of hunger to the life of

This book is a political and cultural history of the early postwar Japan aiming at exploring how the perception and cultural values of everyday life in the coun

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award • One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year

As they examine three related themes of postwar history, the authors describe an ongoing historical process marked by unexpected changes, such as Japan's extrao

Japan is a mix of the old and the new, traditional and modern, and old fashion and innovative. It has traveled the road to a modern destination without totally