The United States and the Japanese Student Movement, 1948-1973: Managing a Free World

by Naoko Koda

Overview

The author argues that interactions between the movement and US Cold Warriors had a profound and lasting impact on Japanese society and Japan-US relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498583411
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/30/2020
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.99(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

Naoko Koda is associate professor at Kindai University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Occupation of Japan and the Unfinished Revolution Chapter 2: Defenders of Democracies Chapter 3: Clashing Concepts of National Security and the Beginning of the Anpo Struggle Chapter 4: The Anpo Chapter 5: The Reischauer Offensive: Promoting a Different Kind of Past Chapter 6: Robert Kennedy and Zengakuren: Seeking a Newer World Chapter 7: Protesting across Borders: the Vietnam War and the Global 1968

Editorial Reviews

Too often Japan is still seen in the West as a land without politics and even more often as a land without a Left. Naoko Koda’s book is a sound education in the error of this notion. Her lucidly written, multi-decade history of the Japanese student organization, Zengakuren, reminds us just how much the Japanese Left was formed in opposition to US militarism and adds a go-to text to the literature of the global sixties.

Quinn Slobodian

Naoko Koda has delivered a striking interpretation of post-1945 US–Japan relations by documenting the authority of Japanese student radicals connected to Zengakuren as a flashpoint in the global Cold War. This is a story of the student Left that contested Cold War liberalism that pivoted around the wrath of anti-Communism, militarization, and colonialism to expose the underlying imperialism of the US–Japan alliance. Zengakuren prefigured the global 1968 student revolt in powerful ways. I recommend this book to all those who are interested in rethinking the very notions of peace and democracy that still underwrite US–Japan security arrangements to maintain a massive military presence, especially in Okinawa. It demands a wide readership.

Yuichiro Onishi

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