Book Reviews : The Politics of Mass Society. By WILLIAM KORNHAUSER. (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959. Pp. 256. $5.00.)

• Date: 01 September 1960
• Published date: 01 September 1960
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296001300330
• Subject Matter: Articles

817
Kawai had the proper background to write about the Occupation from both
American and Japanese viewpoints: born in Japan, educated in the United
States, a teacher at U.C.L.A. from 1932 to 1941, Kawai spent the war years
in Japan and became chief editor of the Nippon Times after the war. Bilingual
and at home in both cultures, Kawai’s academic and journalistic training are
both reflected in this work. The scholar will wish great depth and documenta-
tion ; the average reader and student, however, will gain most from Professor
Kawai’s clear style and over-all approach.
The book opens with a sensitive and correct analysis of Japanese reaction
to defeat: calm relief and eager acceptance of foreign rule. Kawai then sum-
marizes the aims and methods of the reformers in rewriting the Meiji Constitu-
tion ; &dquo;humanizing&dquo; the Emperor; and decentralizing power in the political, eco-
nomic, and social worlds. All the punitive and constructive reforms are viewed
from the dual standpoint of American intention and Japanese reaction. Critique
of the educational reforms is especially good, but recent revisionist movements
tend to be slighted. Disarmament and the struggle to reverse the pacifist tendency
of post-surrender reforms deserve more attention, but Professor Kawai empha-
sized the pre-1952 era and we should not blame him for this delimitation even
though a complete study must include post-treaty revisionism.
Kawai’s conclusion is that American intentions were good, but that hasty
reforms wrought both personal injustices and policy problems. Leftist elements
abused the civil rights and labor laws forced on the Yoshida regime, while many
university students mistook democracy for anarchy and unlimited right to oppose
their elders. Kawai joins Japanese conservatives in deploring such misinterpreta-
tion of the reforms, but his over-all view is favorable toward the net effect of
MacArthur rule: errors were either forgiven by Japanese or corrected by SCAP
after the...