[title forthcoming]

Laura Hein

Department of History

Northwestern University

Nationalism in postwar Japan, as in Germany, has been a difficult subject because it is so closely associated with the wartime militarism that was, in the final analysis, both cruel and incompetent. As long as memories of the war strongly influence public opinion, all forms of nationalism must deal with that uncomfortable legacy, both domestically and internationally. A few Japanese, such as the famous novelist Mishima Yukio have deliberately set out to shock others by celebrating wartime symbols and creeds, but most nationalist statements—particularly the more successful ones---have been deflected through some other set of symbols.

The premier new justification for celebrations of Japanese unique superiority in the postwar era was of course high-speed economic growth. It is unusual for a nation to be primarily defined by its economy: most are thought of in cultural terms (e.g. France, India, all nations with strong Muslim identities) or political ones (e.g. the United States, the Soviet Union), or completely generalized notions (e.g. Africa is in chaos). But in Japan, rapid economic growth quickly became the reputed beneficial outcome of all sorts of supposedly special qualities. These were often highly ideological; so, for example, the practice of widespread group discussions before taking action, celebrated in Japan (and exoticized in the West) as “ringisei” and “nemawashi” was touted as an important reason for Japanese economic success even though the literature being produced at exactly the same moment to explain Africa’s economic failure cited widespread group discussions as a prime reason.

One of the main places where economic outcome and purported cultural cause were joined together in highly ideological ways was in semi-scholarly popular literature aimed at the general reader, especially businessmen. Many of these extremely well-selling works were intended for international as well as Japanese audiences. This list would include Ezra Vogel’s Japan as Number I (1979 English, 1980 Japanese), Ishihara Shintarō’s The Japan that Can Say No (1990 Japanese, 1991 English). What they have in common is a desire to articulate a basis for a strong national Japanese identity.

Counterintuitively, I would like to look at some of the economics-oriented literature to see how contemporary nationalism is being reconstructed now that a gloriously expanding economy cannot justify all theories, no matter how kooky. I suspect that the popular business literature remains an important way that theories of nationalist identity first appear and get disseminated. I plan to sample some of the most popular of these texts to see how they negotiate this new and more difficult terrain. Yaesu Book Center publishes a weekly list of best-selling business books, similar to the New York Times Bestseller lists and I plan to choose my texts from there.