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A New Look at the Problem of “Japanese Fascism”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Extract
In the decade and a half from 1931 to 1945 Japan confronted a series of domestic and international crises culminating in the national disaster of World War II. Many authors - both Japanese and Western - have portrayed this period in terms of the labeling generalization “fascism”, suggesting that Japan's experience ran parallel to that of such European countries as Italy under Mussolini and Germany during the Third Reich. My object here, after first attempting to explain how and why this interpretation arose, is to take issue with it, but in criticizing the use of the label fascism I do not mean to fall back to the position that what happened was simply sui generis, a somehow “unique” Japanese response to the troublesome developments of the interwar world. Fascism has the virtue of being a comparative concept, and if we throw it out we need to seek other comparative concepts to test as possible replacements.
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- Patronage and Parties in Political Structure
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- Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1968
References
1 A compendium of readings both pro and con on the question of whether “fascism” applies to Japan is Morris, Ivan, ed., Japan 1931–1945: Militarism, Fascism, Japanism? (Boston, D. C. Heath, 1963).Google Scholar
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39 See Crowley, James B., Japan's Quest for Autonomy (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1966).Google Scholar
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