Elise K. Tipton

"This volume is a multi-faceted study of the development of modernism in Japan, with authors from Japan, the United States, and Australia spanning the fields of art history, social history, and literature. Being Modern in Japan raises many issues about Japanese modernity and its contested meanings. Writers explore what it meant to be modern in Japan from the 1910s to the 1930s, but many subjects addressed are relevant to modernity elsewhere in Asia, Europe, and North America.". "Being Modern in Japan will be a valuable teaching resource for students of Japanese society, and visual and material culture, and represents a significant contribution to the fields of Japanese studies and cross-cultural studies."--BOOK JACKET.

The perspective in most previous studies of the Japanese prewar state and society has been from the top down. In this book the perspective is shifted by giving more attention to the attitudes and action of groups at lower levels of society. The focus of Society and the State in Interwar Japan is on the interaction between social groups and governmental policies - the nexus between social and political history. In seeking explanations of the coincidence or divergence between governmental and non-governmental goals, various factors are considered, such as the role of nationalism, class, gender and race. The ideas and activities of a number of new social and political groups are explored, such as the urban white-collar class (including middle-class working women), socialists, industrial workers and immmigrant Koreans. The result is a questioning of the myth of Japanese homogeneity and an emphasis on the diversity, cross currents and sociopolitical tensions that characterise the period.

"This is a specialized study of the organization, ideology and activities of the Japanese Special Higherpolice, the Tokkô notorious in pre-war and wartime years for its harassment of opponents of the government. Within a comparative framework, this book explains the elements of Tokkô brutality and abuses of authority, analyses police traditions and looks at the Tokkô's interactions with other Japanese institutions and the broader sociopolitical climate. Sources include confidential Tokkô documents and interviews with former Tokkô officials. First published in 1990, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series."--Bloomsbury Publishing.