Book Reviews : Political Development in Modern Japan (Vol. 4 in "Studies in the Modernization of Japan"). Edited by ROBERT E. WARD. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. Pp. xii, 637. $12.50.)
| Published date | 01 September 1968 |
| Author | Douglas H. Mendel |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296802100329 |
| Date | 01 September 1968 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
532
private
motivations
or
constituency
interests,
however
selfish,
do
not
defile,
tarnish
or
befoul
its
humanitarian
consequences.
Stanford
University
HEINZ
EULAU
Political
Development
in
Modern
Japan
(Vol.
4
in
"Studies
in
the
Modernization
of
Japan").
Edited
by
ROBERT
E.
WARD.
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1968.
Pp.
xii,
637.
$12.50.)
Japan
is
often
extolled
as
the
most
&dquo;modern&dquo;
of
all
non-Western
nations
today.
Having
weathered
the
physical
and
human
disaster
of
World
War
II
to
become
the
world’s
third
industrial
power
and
an
increasingly
important
source
of
aid
to
the
developing
nations,
Japan
is
perhaps
the
most
advanced
democracy
in
Asia.
How
did
the
modernization
of
Japan
between
1855
and
1941
affect
her
political
insti-
tutions ?
Was
the
failure
of
prewar
democracy
counterbalanced
by
the
efficiency
of
an
authoritarian
tradition
based
on
what
leaders
of
many
new
states
now
term
&dquo;guided
democracy&dquo;?
This
book
is
one
of
six
in
a
series
published
by
the
Princeton
University
Press
for
the
Conference
on
Modern
Japan
sponsored
by
the
Association
for
Asian
Studies.
The
thirteen
papers
were
commissioned
in
1963
and
discussed
at
a
five-day
conference
held
in
Bermuda,
January
1965,
where
eleven
other
Japan
specialists
discussed
the
papers
with
their
authors.
The
present
volume
reveals
a
great
improve-
ment
in
the
style
and
content
of
several
papers
over
their
original
form,
but
it
is
perhaps
inevitable
that
papers
prepared
for
a
conference
include
a
few
which
should
never
have been
published.
Moreover,
while
this
is
a
superior
example
of
its
type,
the
chapters
remain
diverse in
orientation
and
method
as
well
as
quality.
This
reviewer
was
one
of
the
discussants
in
Bermuda,
and
can
attest
to
the
serious-
ness
of
the
roundtable
sessions
on
each
paper.
In
one
case
(not
mine)
the
discus-
sant’s
comments
should
have
been
printed
instead
of
the
paper,
but
Professor
Ward’s
Epilogue
sums
up
the
main
points
of
the
papers
and
the
discussions.
The
reader
will
find
editor
Ward’s
Introduction
and
Epilogue
an
excellent
guide
to
the
papers,
because
he
poses
questions
and
hypotheses
that
apply
not
only
to
prewar
Japan
but
to
the
current
developing
nations.
It
is
impossible
to
do
justice
to
the
richness
of
the
papers
in
this
brief
review,
but
the
book
belongs
on
the
shelf
of
every
Japan
scholar
and
others
interested
in
political
development.
It
is
far
more
successful
than
Ward’s
co-edited
volume
on
Political
Modernization
in
Japan
and
Turkey
(Princeton,
t964).
John
W.
Hall
opens
the
series
of
papers
with
a
superbly
written
analysis
of
the
role
of
the
Japanese
emperor
in
modernization.
It
is
one
of
the
best
papers
ever
written
on
the
subject,
and
the
best
in
this
volume.
The
emperor,
despite
the
militarists’
abuse
of
his
image
in
1932-45,
survived
the
defeat
to
become
a
genuinely
popular
force
for
national
unity.
The
next
two
papers,
by
Roger
Hackett
and
Albert
Craig,
discuss
respectively
the
role
of
the
genro,
or
elder
statesmen
behind
the
throne,
and
the
liberal
nationalism
of
Japan’s
most
famous
pro-Western
educa-
tor
Fukuzawa
Yukichi
in
the
period
between
1870
and
1920
(which
is
the
focus
of
most
papers
in
the
book).
Then
Marius
Jansen
and
Nobutaka
Ike,
in
turn,
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