What is it about?
Through 40 interviews, personal memoirs, archival materials and local newspaper accounts, World War II and the American Occupation are explored in Oita Prefecture, located on the eastern coast of Kyushu. The interviews come from those who were students, soldiers, cadets, mid-wives, nurses, teachers and munitions factory workers who survived the war.
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Why is it important?
This book gives a rare view of WWII and American Occupation "from the ground," focusing on daily life in Japan from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. As this generation is quickly passing away, this work is one of the last to capture these important first hand memories.
Perspectives
As American and Chinese authors living in Japan for 10 years, we entered this project with our own biases about Japan during the war. What we discovered was a country, even today, that holds mixed feelings about that period, with most, though not all, expressing regret over that period. Yet even with the regret, it is clear there is also some pride in the effort put forth by the common citizenry and soldiers to support their country. In the end, this book humanizes the people who worked so hard for a lost cause.
Edgar Porter
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This page is a summary of: Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation, March 2017, Amsterdam University Press,
DOI: 10.5117/9789462982598.
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