Parties Out of Power in Japan, 1931-1941 by Gordon Mark BergerReview by: Daniel B. RamsdellThe American Historical Review, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Jun., 1979), pp. 831-832Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1855568 .

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Asia and the East 83I

Kurusu is a superb history of the tremendous changes that have taken place in rural life in post- war Japan. Written by an anthropologist with a good sense of history, it deals with the alterations that have occurred in every aspect of what is known as "village Japan"-the composition of the population, changes in the economy (including the decline of agriculture), changes in the family and living arrangements, and the revolution in the standard of living-and their effect on community and interpersonal relations. This book is worthy of review in a historical journal because Robert J. Smith has interwoven the events in Kurusu, a hamlet comprising a score of families, with changes at the national level. Thus, in a real sense, we have a history of "the" village in postwar Ja- pan, rather than merely of "a" village. So well done is this study that, despite my long in- volvement with Japan, I was only fully made aware of the postwar revolution in life styles after reading it.

Smith's subtitle, The Price of Progress in a J7apanese [Village, refers to the loss of community and har- mony the hamlet has experienced as a result of participation in a wider world-the decline of the village as the major source of income and the use of machines, both farm and domestic, for activities that used to be undertaken cooperatively. The spe- cific catalyst for this loss in Kurusu was the "Clo- ver affair" of 1975, in which the hamlet split over the question of whether a chicken processor should be permitted to set up a factory within the village. The opponents of the venture, those fearing the pollution it might cause, successfully blocked it, but the rift was such that the community as a whole feels that the harm done to interpersonal and community relations will never be repaired. The damage, however, was not caused by the dis- agreement between residents per se, but by the fact that it was carried out on a public level, with newspaper and television coverage, and not in the privacy of the jichikai, the self-governing associa- tion.

It is only the sections on the decline of hamlet solidarity and on the generation gap (chaps. 6-8) that leave the reader with unanswered questions. What are community relations like in the vast majority of villages that have not experienced this unusual rift in community relations? And Smith's treatment of the generation gap leaves the reader with the feeling that he would like to see a psychol- ogist study how these people really feel about each other. All of this is, of course, necessarily beyond the scope of Smith's book, and it is the mark of the true scholar that he can point to directions for future research.

Comparisons between spending patterns, wages, and so forth would be easier to grasp had the

author included an index of changes in real and nominal income, instead of merely the dollar-yen exchange rate. This book, however, is extremely well-written and Smith always takes pains to pres- ent his work so that the nonspecialist can fully understand it. I cannot recommend any book more highly.

SUSAN B. HANLEY

University of Washington, Seattle

GORDON MARK BERGER. Parties Out of Power in _Japan, I93I-I94I. Princeton: Princeton University Press. I977. Pp. xv, 413. $20.00.

One of the recurring questions in modern Japa- nese history concerns the significance of the 1930s. Do they represent an aberration, a dark valley between the bright peaks of "Taisho Democracy" in the twenties and the ''miraculous recovery" of the postwar era? Do they constitute the culmina- tion of an inevitable trend toward fascism brought about by the superimposition of capitalism upon a still feudal society in the nineteenth century? Or did military dominance of the Japanese political scene in the thirties simply stand for a "normal" development in a land with a long tradition of military rule?

In this detailed work onJapanese elite politics in the 1930s, Grodon Mark Berger provides what has come to be expected of American historians of Japan: a well-researched, nonideological, and somewhat tedious study that fails to address the above questions. To say this, however, is not to criticize the book, which is a valuable contribution to the English-language literature on modern Ja- pan. Most previous studies by Americans have approached the period either in order to explain the background to war or to examine the prewar activities of the postwar left-wing parties. Depart- ing from this to concentrate on the bourgeois polit- ical parties, Berger shows that these organizations were virtually indestructible. Although all political parties in Japan were officially dissolved in the summer of 1940, they retained their parliamentary power, their local bases of support, and their lead- ership structure, to re-emerge after I945 with new names to dominate national politics. Thus, as Ber- ger implies, the political transformation of postwar Japan was not as dramatic and surprising as often supposed. What is amazing is the continuity of Japanese institutions, a fact that is brought to the reader's attention.

After a brief introduction on the history of Ja- pan's bourgeois political parties up to 1930, Berger devotes two chapters to the decline of party au- thority and the concomitant rise of military influ-

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832 Reviews of Books

ence up to the 1937 designation of Konoe Fumi- maro as premier. This part of the book contains little that is new, but is a necessary prelude to the remainder, which consists of three immensely de- tailed chapters on the late thirties. Drawing mainly on memoirs, secondary accounts, and some interviews, Berger provides a blow-by-blow ac- count of the political struggles of the various elites of which the parties were but one. Occasionally this section gets bogged down in minutiae, but it is also the most valuable part of the book. A high point is the author's keen description of the re- peated attempts to mobilize the masses of Japan through various devices including the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in late 1940.

On the whole, this work is worthy of more praise than criticism. It does not replace the many ex- cellent works on the period in Japanese, but is the kind of 'solid" treatment that may become stan- dard. I fear the readership will not be large, but copies of it should stand on the shelves of univer- sity libraries for many years to come.

DANIEL B. RAMSDELL

Central Wshington University

RISHIKESH SHAHA. Nepali Politics: Retrospect and Pros- pect. 2d ed., rev. New York: Oxford University Press. 1978. Pp. xii, 29I. $11.50.

NARI RUSTOMJi. Bhutan: The Dragon Kingdom in Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press. 1978. Pp. 150o $8.95.

In two of the smallest and most remote states in the world the beckoning trails to modernity are filled with perils. Both monarchies with ancient ways still strongly in place, Nepal and Bhutan relentlessly trudge ahead on the courses charted by others with, as it were, joyless expressions on their faces. They know well what they are leaving behind but have no clear vision of what lies ahead. Switzerlands of Asia? Appendages of India's chaotic industrializing culture? Miniature show- cases of village-level democracy? Rishikesh Shaha, the Nepali patriot and scholar, and Nari Rustomji, the sympathetic, hard-working Indian advisor to Bhutan, give no answers. But their well-produced books raise every conceivable question.

Shaha's Nepali Politics adds impressively to the finely structured analyses of Nepal's domestic and foreign policies published in the past two decades. Shaha is a master of American modernization the- ory and enriches it with the intimate knowledge of the insider. His bibliography, economic data charts, and appended documents alone make the work an essential addition to basic libraries on Nepal and modernization. In four sepaPately writ-

ten essays (chapters) on national integration, pan- chayat politics, foreign policy, and (for this edition) the working of the 1975 constitution and recent foreign policy, the author explores all practical and philosophical problems of Nepal's public life. Two examples may convey some of the substance: Stronger administration, Shaha finds, creates an "imbalance between the administrative and politi- cal bases of power" because "leaders are prone to exploit the administrative services for political pur- poses" (p. 31). "Political participation" in Nepal thus may not be the path to democracy but to bureaucratic feudalism. To remain independent, Nepal pursues in foreign policy a classic buffer state strategy whose success "depends on its abil- ity to assess . . . what India and China regard as their minimum interests in a particular matter at a given time and, on the basis of this assessment, to strive for concessions and gains from all parties" (p. I85).

Bhutan's politics, devoid of the blessings of insti- tutionalization, center around the royal family, the Wangchuks, and, during Rustomji's'tenure as In- dian advisor (I963-66), the Dorjis. A genealogical chart (unfortunately lacking dates) traces the ex- traordinary linkages of these two powerful clans and the related Namgyals of Sikkim. Modern- ization, partly embodied in Rustomji's develop- ment activities, inevitably hurled against one an- other old time army officers and lamas on the one hand-not distinctly characterized perhaps be- cause everything important in Bhutan is secret- and on the other hand the Westernized Dorjis who innocently offended people by introducing roads, foreign experts, and visitors like Shirley MacLaine into the Dragon Kingdom. Jigmie Palden Dorji, to whom the book is dedicated, paid with his life in 1964. His assassination, never conclusively adjudi- cated according to the author, and the tragic re- percussions that followed are the subjects of Rus- tomji's swiftly moving, dramatic account. King Wangchuk, married to Jigmie Dorji's sister but also suspicious of the rival Dorji family, emerges as a pathetic figure seeking solace in his mistress and in frequent foreign visits for his heart trouble. Poli- tics seem primitive compared to the Nepali arena. Is Bhutan headed for an Iranian type of modern- ization, Sikkim-style absorption into India, or something else? This book merely sets the stage for subsequent answers, with a mystery story as a brilliant opener.

CHARLES 11. HEIMSATlI

American UJniversity

R. I). [III.. Rice in Malaya: A Study in Historical Geography. New York: Oxford University Press. 1977. Pp. xvii, 234. $39.50.

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