The social sciences in modern Japan [electronic resource] : the Marxian and modernist traditions / Andrew E. Barshay.

ISBN:

9780520941335

9781435611498

9781433708886

Title:

The social sciences in modern Japan [electronic resource] : the Marxian and modernist traditions / Andrew E. Barshay.

Author:

Barshay, Andrew E.

Personal Author:

Barshay, Andrew E.

Publication Information:

Berkeley, Calif. ; London : University of California Press, 2007.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 331 pages).

Series:

Twentieth-century Japan : the emergence of a world power ; 15

General Note:

Originally published: 2004.

Contents:

Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; 1. Social Science as History; 2. The Social Sciences in Modern Japan: An Overview; 3. Doubly Cruel: Marxism and the Presence of the Pastin Japanese Capitalism; 4. Thinking through Capital: Uno Kozo and Marxian Political Economy; 7. Imagining Democracy in Postwar Japan:Maruyama Masao as a Political Thinker; 5. School's Out? The Uno School Meets Japanese Capitalism; 6. Social Science and Ethics: Civil Society Marxism; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Social sciences -- Japan -- History.

Intellectuals -- Japan -- History.

Socialism -- Japan.

Democracy -- Japan -- History.

Political culture -- Japan -- History.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2007

2004

Publication Information:

Berkeley, Calif. ; London : University of California Press, 2007.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
300.9520904 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

This incisive intellectual history of Japanese social science from the 1890s to the present day considers the various forms of modernity that the processes of "development" or "rationalization" have engendered and the role social scientists have played in their emergence. Andrew E. Barshay argues that Japan, together with Germany and pre-revolutionary Russia, represented forms of developmental alienation from the Atlantic Rim symptomatic of late-emerging empires. Neither members nor colonies of the Atlantic Rim, these were independent national societies whose cultural self-image was nevertheless marked by a sense of difference.

Barshay presents a historical overview of major Japanese trends and treats two of the most powerful streams of Japanese social science, one associated with Marxism, the other with Modernism (kindaishugi) , whose most representative figure is the late Maruyama Masao. Demonstrating that a sense of developmental alienation shaped the thinking of social scientists in both streams, the author argues that they provided Japanese social science with moments of shared self-understanding.

Author Notes

Barshay Andrew E. :

Andrew E. Barshay is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan: The Public Man in Crisis (California, 1988).

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Barshay (Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes up one of the most vital issues awaiting investigation for a deeper understanding of modern Japan. Central to his inquiry is how both Marxist and modernist social scientific discourses on modernity--capitalism, nation-state, and democracy--sought not only to explain "the world as it is" but also to change "the world as it ought to be." According to Barshay, both schools of thought were haunted and driven by the teleological perception of world historical development. From their different perspectives, they confronted the exigencies of Japan's developmental anomalies (i.e., the lingering legacies of feudalism, the absence of a fully developed civil society) considered to be symptomatic of late-emerging empires. The corollaries of such intellectual endeavors were of great significance for the creation of Japan's self-understanding of modern experiences. Barshay's book is a remarkable achievement that not only helps readers understand the complexity and vibrancy of Japan's struggle for a "better and more just society," but also compels social scientists to reflect on the political and ethical issues underlying their practice of knowledge production. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. K. Hirano DePaul University