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Reviews of Books
appreciation of "managerial culture" that he demonstrates for the "subjectivity of the workers."
Nimura takes issue with two of the most influential
theories in the postwar Japanese scholarship on labor:
Maruyama Masao's notion of "spontaneous resistance" by "atomized" workers and Okochi Kazuo's
"migrant labor" thesis. Rejecting Maruyama's assertion that the Ashio riot represented "nothing more
than the spasmodic fits of desperately atomized workers" who were alienated from preindustrial collective
norms by the process of modernization (p. 42), Nimura
argues convincingly that the Ashio miners had a strong
sense of community and shared purpose. Stressing the
workers' "determination to organize" (p. 45), Nimura
shows how the strength of traditional social institutions-the miners' brotherhoods-and the cooperative
nature of the modern work process itself created a
worker culture more "associative" than "atomized."
Nimura's anatomy of the events at Ashio also casts
doubt on Okochi's time-honored theory, which ascribed the distinctive character of Japanese labor to
the persistence of "feudal" values and enduring connections to the traditional agrarian economy in Japan's
industrial work force. Challenging Okochi's fixation on
the labor market and the "stubborn continuity of
premodern social relations" (p. 2), Nimura shows how
labor problems at Ashio were shaped by the specific
production process employed at the mine, and he
emphasizes the impact of technological change, managerial strategy, and shop-floor conditions on the
evolution of the Japanese labor movement. Some
might consider Nimura's discussion of "spontaneity" in
the Ashio riot semantically hairsplitting, find his critique of Okochi's arguments rather prosaic (at least in
light of current scholarly opinion), and be disappointed by his sometimes cursory treatment of Tokugawa-era antecedents. Nevertheless, Nimura amply
demonstrates the value of a meticulous "disputecentered study" in reevaluating the grand theories of
Japanese labor history and affording new perspectives
on the working-class experience in industrializing Japan.
In his conclusion, Nimura lays out a formidable
agenda for future research on Japanese labor, stressing
the need for a deeper understanding of the workers'
mentaliu?s and a more nuanced appreciation of the
complex legacies of premodern society. Nimura's epilogue, which places the case of Ashio and the Japanese
labor movement in an broad comparative framework,
also raises a number of topics that warrant further
study: notably, blue-collar class consciousness in Japan, the "quality of violence" in Japanese labor disputes, and the weakness of the craft tradition in Japan.
Overall, but especially perhaps in these closing chapters, the similarities between Nimura's approach and
the "new labor history" (now far from new in the
United States and Britain) are unmistakable. Yet as
Andrew Gordon writes in his preface to this volume,
Nimura's work should not be considered derivative but
"chronologically and conceptually parallel" to trends
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
in Western scholarship (p. xiii). By any measure, this
book stands as a major work of labor history, a model
of painstaking research and keen historical analysis
that deserves a wide audience.
WILLIAM
M.
TSUTSUI
University of Kansas
PETER WETZLER. Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition
and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 294.
$38.00.
This is an extensively researched, analytical study
designed to delve into the mode of thinking that
governed Emperor Showa's (Hirohito's) political life
and the role he played in the decision-making process
of prewar Japan. The main thesis presented by Peter
Wetzler is that Hirohito's governing motivation was
the preservation of the imperial house and the kokutai
(national polity).
The author reviews the role that Hirohito played in
the decision-making process by examining his participation in the series of war plans devised by the army
and navy, beginning with the 1936 plan that envisioned
war with the United States. Wetzler points out that
Hirohito participated in decision making but was not
the sole decision maker; he helped build consensus as
one of an elite of policy makers.
On the decision to attack Pearl Harbor, the author
agrees with the Japanese critics of the emperor that he
was fully informed of the plan by a series of informal
meetings with General Hideki Tojo and his staff, so he
was not confronted with just the final decision arrived
at by the government and military officials. In the
postwar years, Hirohito claimed that as a constitutional monarch he could not go against the government's decision and that opposition could have resulted in a coup. Wetzler cites this as proof that the
emperor's primary concern was the preservation of the
imperial house. Most scholars agree that if the Emperor had opposed going to war with the United
States, Tojo would have acceded to his wishes. Hirohito seems to have gone along with the force of events.
Wetzler concludes that the emperor was an opportunist, neither a militarist nor an advocate of peace.
To understand the basis for the emperor's seeming
obsession with preserving the imperial house and the
kokutai, Wetzler reviews Hirohito's educational background and focuses on the values instilled in him by his
teachers, Sugiura Shigetake and Shira tori Kurakichi.
Sugiura centered his teachings on concepts and works
that stressed the historical roots and values of the
imperial dynasty. Historian Shiratori likewise emphasized the sacredness of the imperial dynasty, stressing
the superiority of Japanese history and ethics over
those of China, from which Japan selectively adapted
its cultural and ethical concepts.
Wetzler focuses on Makino Nobuaki as the influential personality at the court. Saionji Kimmochi, a
liberal aristocrat, was the most important prewar
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Asia
figure at the court and in the politics of the 1920s and
1930s, but Wetzler evidently chose to focus on Makino,
a "liberal bureaucrat," because of his official capacity
as imperial household minister (1921-1925) and lord
keeper of the privy seal (1925-1935), and also because
his role at the court has not been given much attention.
Makino was an elitist and a nationalist but also a
moderate. He, like other court advisers and civil
officials, was committed to upholding the sacrosanct
imperial tradition.
In order to protect the emperor's status as ruler and
embodiment of the sanctity of the kokutai, Saionji and
Makino endeavored to prevent Hirohito from becoming directly involved in political affairs and to keep him
confined to ceremonial functions. His role was to reign
but not to rule. During his regency (1921-1926),
Hirohito remained politically uninvolved, but when he
assumed the emperorship (1926) he began to assert
himself on certain occasions. Shielding the emperor
from political responsibility, Wetzler concludes, was
partly responsible for the rise of the military, because
under the existing system the military had direct access
to the emperor.
The author reviews Makino's role until his departure from the court after the February 26, 1936
military coup attempt. Acting as Saionji's cohort,
Makino sought to keep Hirohito from direct involvement in political affairs during the period of increasing
military activism. During the Manchurian incident and
other events that followed, the emperor occasionally
expressed his will. At times, the military acceded to
him; on other occasions, they ignored his wishes.
Wetzler concludes that he was not consistent in his
opposition to military action, and he often equivocated.
In the concluding chapter, Wetzler sums up the
emperor's role in the decision-making process. Stephen Large, with whose Emperor Hirohito and Showa
Japan (1992) Wetzel notes his disagreement several
times in the text, believes that thc emperor was
moderate and even tended to obstruct the impetus to
war. On the other hand, Herbert Bix sees him as a
"Fighting Generalissimo" (see Bix, "The Showa Emperor's 'Monologue' and the Problem of War Responsibility," Journal of Japanese Studies [1992]). Wetzler's
conclusion is that "depending on the constellations of
forces around him, he sought peace or made war ...
preoccupied mainly with assuring the position and
continued existence of the imperial house of Japan"
(p. 180). In Hirohito's thinking, preservation of the
imperial line and the national polity was of primary
importance. "If as a consequence a war ensued, that
was extremely unfortunate but unavoidable" (p. 202). I
believe that whatever the reason for his sanctioning of
war, millions were killed and died in his name. Hirohito should have been made to bear full responsiblity
for their deaths.
This work is an important addition to studies dealing
with Hirohito and Japanese political history of the
Sh6wa era. One might feel that Wetzler overstates the
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885
thesis that Hirohito's concern for the kokutai and
imperial house was the ultimate reason for all his
significant actions and decisions. Makino's role as one
of the key advisers was less significant after he left the
court, and many of the important decisions the emperor was involved in occurred in the late 1930s and
the early 1940s, when imperial advisers like Saionji and
Kido K6ichi played critically important roles. Their
activities might have been elaborated more fully. Also,
one might have reservations about the author's explanation of Japanese international conduct in terms of
the characteristic of amae (emotional dependency).
Perusing this incisive analytical work together with
other works, like Large's Emperor Hirohito and Showa
Japan (1992) and Irokawa Daikichi's The Age of Hirohito (1995), should provide the reader with a balanced
perspective.
MIKISO HANE
Knox College
M. C. RICKLEFS. The Seen and Unseen Worlds in Java,
1726-1749: History, Literature, and Islam in the Court
of Pakubuwana II. (Asian Studies Association of Australia Southeast Asia Publication Series.) Honolulu:
University of Hawai'i Press, in association with the
Asian Studies Association of Australia. 1998. Pp. xxiv,
391. $35.00.
This is a book about evidence. It uses the troublesome
reign of a troubling king in troubled mid-eighteenth
century Java as a kind of test case for historical
methods and interweaves a narrative and a historiographical exegesis of the known documentary sources,
principally Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) reports
and correspondence on the one hand and Javanese
historical and religious literature on the other. It seeks
to explore the connections between ideas and actions,
but on the strict basis of existing records rather than on
speculation or postmodernist appraisal. It seeks to
stake out the limits of what we can and cannot know
about Javanese thought and political life during this
crucial period, when the Mataram court faced Dutch
power. Some will find the approach as well as the goal
rather old-fashioned; my own view is that they constitute both a powerful warning and a first-class guide for
future scholarship.
M. C. Ricklefs makes three particularly important
points. First, although it is perhaps readily understood
these days that no history of eighteenth-century Javanese political life can rest entirely on Dutch sources
but must take into serious, perhaps even more serious,
consideration Javanese materials as well, it is equally
important to understand that there are limits to both.
Dutch materials, for example, are not always reliable
in factual matters (even basic dates) and reflect their
authors' complete ignorance of many aspects of Javanese life; treating them as more than "the essential
first step for Javanese historians" (p. 345) would be a
grave mistake. Javanese sources are often obscure as
to meaning and motive, and we have no way of
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