Gibbs, Michael H.
Japan Research Monograph 14
2000. 322 pp.
ISBN 1-55729-066-0
$20.00
Status, purpose, and lineage are the themes of this study of the postwar Japanese labor movement. The study stretches from 1943 to 1984. During that time, Japan went from being a vast empire to a defeated, occupied, and outcast nation. Social transformation lowered the barriers of status and class, and economic restructuring reoriented industry from wartime to peaceful production.
Unionists ensured their eligibility for participation in the national political discourse of the 1950s and 1960s by demonstrating their sense of high purpose in the debates of the late 1940s. Men and women from a much broader segment of society than ever before participated in the postwar struggle to define a new purpose for Japanese politics. This study looks at individual behavior motivated by this search for high purpose and examines a variety of cases, differing by status, age, and experience.
