Thought and Behavior in Modern Japanese Politics (Acls History E-Book Project Reprint Series)

THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOUR IN

MODERN JAPANESE POLITICS

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THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOUR IN

MODERN JAPANESE POLITICS EXPANDED EDITION

~asao ~aruyanna EDITED BY

Ivan Morris

Oxford University Press LONDON

OXFORD

NEW YORK

Copyright © 1969 by Oxford University Press. Inc. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 74-90162

English translation of Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics was first published by Oxford University Press, London, 1963. @ Oxford University Press, 1963

First issued, in an expanded edit~on, as an Oxford University Press paperbadt, 1969

Printed in the United States of America

Editor's- Preface Among the spate of~ books about- Japan that have appeared since the war in English -and-other European languages one type is -almost -conspicuous -by its rarity: namely, studies- by Japanese scholars about -their~ own coUntry. Several- bookshelves could be filled with works: by Western experts dealing with the history, politics, economics, religion, -art, and -literature of the colintry. When-itcomes-to ttanslationofwhat modem Japanese writers have~to say about their own land~and its-people, however, we have been limited largely to fiction. DuriJig~ the:. past fifteen years a remarkable num-ber~~0f translated -novels, plays, and short stories have been published-:in the- West, and- cumu~ latively they give a -vivid~and authentic picture of life in these distant islands which, -f.hough- theye can nOw be -reached--by air in a matter of hourS, still tend in -many ways to be -inaeces.; sible. Yet, valuable as these translations ~offiction may be, both in their own right- as ·liter~tUr-e- and ~ for- the- tmderstanding~ they provide· of Japan- past and p~esent,c-they hardly