This book explores the stakes of war memory in Japan after its defeat in World War II, showing how and why defeat has become an indelible part of national collective life, especially in recent decades. It probes into the heart of the divisive war memories that lie at the root of current disputes over revising Japan's pacifist constitution, remilitarization, and the escalating frictions in East Asia that have come to be known collectively as Japan's "history problem."
Examining Japan's culture of defeat up to the present day, the book illuminates how memories of national trauma remain relevant to culture and society long after the event, and why the memories of difficult experiences endure, and even intensify, despite people's impulse to avoid remembering a dreadful past and to move on. These memories have endured in Japan for many reasons: the nation's trajectory changed profoundly after its surrender of sovereignty in 1945; collective life had to be regenerated from the catastrophic national fall; and it faced the predicament of living with a discredited, tainted past.
This book shows that the culture of defeat in Japan has mobilized new and continually revised narratives to explain grievous national failures, mourn the dead, redirect blame, and recover from the burdens of stigma and guilt. The task of making a coherent story of defeat is at the same time a project of repairing the moral backbone of a broken society. Drawing on ethnographic observations and personal interviews as well as testimonial and other popular memory data since the 1980s, the book identifies three preoccupations - national belonging, healing, and justice - in Japan's discourses of defeat. It traces the key memory narratives, and identifies their crucial roles in assessing Japan's choices - nationalism, pacifism, or reconciliationism - for addressing the escalating national and international tensions it faces today.
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Cultural Memory in a Fallen Nation
Chapter 2: Repairing Biographies and Aligning Family Memories
Chapter 3: Defeat Reconsidered: Heroes, Victims, & Perpetrators in the Popular Media
Chapter 4: Pedagogies of War and Peace: Teaching World War II to Children
Chapter 5: The Moral Recovery of Defeated Nations: A Global-Comparative Look
Notes
Bibliography
Index
2016 Scholarly Achievement Award, North Central Sociological Association
"The Long Defeat is no doubt a significant achievement. This is a must-read volume for scholars and students of memory studies. The book is theoretically solid and empirically rich. Theoretically, Hashimoto's thorough reading of social memory literature is skillfully matched up with trauma theory, providing a compelling theoretical framework. Empirically, each analytical chapter has original data, deepening our understanding of Japan's memory politics. The book is also rich in Japanese sources, which also makes it a valuable read for the students of Japanese identity politics." --Contemporary Sociology
"A major achievement, theoretically and empirically, The Long Defeat exposes startling fractures in Japanese identity that will affect regional and global politics for decades to come. Timely and empathic, this is also a deeply disturbing book." --Jeffrey C. Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University
"World War II is no longer a lived experience for the vast majority of people. But in East Asia today the politics of war memory are more divisive than ever. The Long Defeat is must reading for anyone seeking to understand why. With a deeply grounded comparative perspective, Akiko Hashimoto offers a searching and compassionate analysis of the way people in Japan have dealt with the traumatic memory of war over the long postwar decades." --Andrew Gordon, Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History, Harvard University
"The Long Defeat is a sweeping analysis of Japanese memory from virtually every angle--political, cultural, and personal--across the span of postwar history. There is hardly anything else like it. It is an essential contribution to the scholarly literature as well as an exceptionally compelling read." --Jeffrey Olick, Professor of Sociology and History, University of Virginia
"I have followed the controversies in Japan about WWII history for many years without reaching any sort of settled conclusion. However, [The Long Defeat] puts the topic in a new light. Akiko Hashimoto understands the story as the interplay among three competing narratives about the heroes, the victims, and the perpetrators of the war. It is based on her own growing up in Japan, substantial work on the issue in Germany, and examination of discourses in popular media and textbooks." --NBR's Japan Forum
"Hashimoto draws our gaze to intertwined narratives of nationalism, pacifism and reconciliation, and the long shadow of defeat that animates the politics of national identity." --The Japan Times
"In this timely, poignant, and eminently readable volume, Hashimoto examines Japan's continuing "history problem". Working with a wide trove of primary material--movies, television, newspapers, documentaries, interviews, oral histories, textbooks--she concludes that there is no coherent or unified narrative of the war from a Japanese perspective. Summing Up: Essential." --CHOICE
"By drawing from a wide body of sociological and historical methodologies, Hashimoto offers us a clear and jargon-free assessment of the intellectual and political battles that continue long after the war ended, particularly in the years spanning the 1990s through the 2010s. The book will be of great value to those who are interested in understanding how societies and states grapple with "cultural traumas"... Hashimoto has built the groundwork for new ways to understand war memory in Japan. Other scholars might take up the baton and employ her methodologies in more deeply place-specific studies." --H-Net Reviews, H-War
"...a valuable contribution to the burgeoning recent literature on "collective memory." Yet it thoughtfully disputes the usefulness of that notion, arguing instead that cultures have competing, incongruent memories of their traumatic pasts and that this is especially important for understanding the contest of memories in contemporary Japan." -- American Journal of Sociology
"...And this brings us back to why The Long Defeat is such a significant contribution to the literature -- Hashimoto's cultural analysis, her focus on the micro-level and the family, and the emphasis upon the fact that the way in which collective memory formation takes shape in non-Western countries may be significantly different from those in Western countries, which currently dominate the field. It is truly a beautifully written book, exceptional in its clarity of prose and organization." --Mark A. Wolfgram, Oklahoma State University, lHistorical Dialogues, Justice and Memory Network at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR) at Columbia University.
"Akiko Hashimoto's The Long Defeat is a fine exploration of the "culture of defeat" and its complexities in postwar Japan...The book is a valuable contribution to the burgeoning recent literature on 'collective memory.'" --John Torpey, Graduate Center, City University of New York
"The Long Defeat is a book that details how the memories of violent conflict shape culture. Hashimoto presents her readers with a compelling case that is theoretically sophisticated and empirically rigorous. The book should be considered by anyone interested in collective memory, national identity, World War II, or Japanese history." --Social Forces
"Akiko Hashimoto's lThe Long Defeat is a masterly analysis of these developments from the 1990s until the present. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the issues of historical debate, public memory, and mourning for the war dead in Japan. Hashimoto sensitively engages in a careful cross-referencing of these discussions in Japan with those taking place in other countries including Germany-probably the state most comparable to Japan in terms of its wartime history as an aggressor nation and its postwar struggle with the legacies of the past." -Sven Saaler, lThe Journal of Japanese Studies
"The Long Defeat should be mandatory reading for those interested in understanding contemporary Japanese society and for scholars studying war memory more generally. Hashimoto should be praised for so carefully weaving together disparate parts of the war memory debate in Japan."-The Memory Studies
"The Japanese sociologist Akiko Hashimoto has identified three trends regarding the so-called History Problem. In her book, The Long Defeat, Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity she discusses views of who was responsible and in what way and how to accomplish a closure - not only for Japan but in relation to neighboring countries who suffered from Japanese warfare and occupation."-Monica Braw, Swedish blogger at www.monicabraw.se
"The Long Defeat is no doubt a significant achievement. This is a must-read volume for scholars and students of memory studies. The book is theoretically solid and empirically rich. Theoretically, Hashimoto's thorough reading of social memory literature is skillfully matched up with trauma theory, providing a compelling theoretical framework. Empirically, each analytical chapter has original data, deepening our understanding of Japan's memory politics. The book is also rich in Japanese sources, which also makes it a valuable read for the students of Japanese identity politics." --Contemporary Sociology
"Japanese war memories are a topic that simply will not go away academically, politically and personally and Akiko Hashimoto's book is an important addition to the burgeoning literature." --Pacific Affairs
ISBN : 9780190239169
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