Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation
Summary
An intellectual tour de force Re-Inventing Japan is a major effort to rethink the contours of Japanese history, culture, and nationality. Challenging the mythology of a historically unitary, even monolithic Japan, this important book offers a fresh perspective on issues of culture and identity in modern Japan. During the past two decades, many writers, both inside and outside Japan, have presented analyses of the unique characteristics of Japanese society, and some have suggested that Japan's distinctive culture offer a model for other to emulate. A the same time, critics have questions this emphasis on Japanese "uniqueness" and have sought to reveal the darker elements - the conformity and social pressures - inherent in Japan's economic success. This book takes the debate a step further by examining the concepts that are used to understand modern Japan, focusing in such key issues as nature, culture, race, globalization, information, and democracy to reveal how each concept has been applied and interpreted in modern Japan. The result points to a new approach to understanding Japan's place in the late twentieth-century world.
«A well-focused, tightly argued piece of academic writing that should delight Japanologists as well as students of comparative culture, enthicity, and nation-building. ... This is a work that deserves to be taken seriously. ... The book reads smoothly, and the author's arguments are persuasive and well supported with citations from Japanese and English secondary literature. ... A stimulating, well-crafted book that deserves a wide readership among scholars in many disciplines. It will also be useful addition to undergraduate and graduate course syllabi on modern Japan. I recommend it heartly»Monumenta Nipponica
«Morris-Suzuki uses a wide palate of both Japanese and Western historians and philosophers to get at notions of "culture", "race", "ethnicity", and "civilization" and discver how these categories have been used in the Japanese context... Breaks new ground.»Pacific Affairs
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