Japan in the American century /Kenneth B. Pyle.
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, (c)2018.
- 1 online resource (457 pages) : illustrations
Includes bibliographies and index.
Two rising powers -- Unconditional surrender policy -- The decision to use the atomic bomb -- An American revolution in Japan -- The subordination of Japan -- For the soul of Japan -- A peculiar alliance -- Competing capitalisms -- Japan's non-convergent society -- Democracy in Japan -- Japan in the twilight of the American century.
No nation was more deeply affected by America's rise to world power than Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt's unprecedented policy of unconditional surrender led to the catastrophic finale of the Asia-Pacific War and the most intrusive international reconstruction of another nation in modern history. Japan in the American Century examines how Japan, with its deeply conservative heritage, responded to the imposition of a new liberal order. The price Japan paid to end the occupation was a cold war alliance with the United States that ensured America's dominance in the region. Still traumatized by its wartime experience, Japan developed a grand strategy of dependence on U.S. security guarantees so that the nation could concentrate on economic growth. Yet from the start, despite American expectations, Japan reworked the American reforms to fit its own circumstances and cultural preferences, fashioning distinctively Japanese variations on capitalism, democracy, and social institutions.--