Japan in the World

Since the end of World War II, Japan has determinately remained outside the current of world events and uninvolved in the processes determining global history and politics. In Japan and the World, distinguished scholars, novelists, and intellectuals articulate how Japan—despite unprecedented economic prowess in securing dominance in the world’s market—is caught in a complex dependency with the United States. Drawing on critical and postmodernist theory, this timely volume situates this dependency in a broader historical context and assesses Japan’s current dealings in international politics, society, and culture.
Among the many topics covered are: racism in U.S.-Japanese relations; productivity and workplace discourse; Western cultural hegemony; the constructing of a Japanese cultural history; and the place of the novelist in today’s world. Originally published as a special issue of boundary 2 (Fall 1991), this edition includes four new essays on Japanese industrial revolution; the place of English studies in Japan; how American cultural, historical, and political discourse represented Japan and in turn how America’s version of Japan became Japan’s version of itself; and an “archaeology” of hegemonic relationships between Japan and America and Britain in the first half of the twentieth century.

Contributors. Eqbal Ahmad, Perry Anderson, Bruce Cumings, Arif Dirlik, H.D. Harootunian, Kazuo Ishuro, Fredric Jameson, Kojin Karatani, Oe Kenzaburo, Masao Miyoshi, Tetsuo Najita, Leslie Pincus, Naoki Sakai, Miriam Silverberg, Christena Turner, Rob Wilson, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto