This chapter describes the history of the use of “night soil” in Japan, using agricultural manuals and records left by individuals dating from the Edo period to the modern period in order to consider possible future developments. The use of human excreta as fertilizer evolved in terms of the objectives and the techniques utilized, and it remained in use until the period of high economic growth. With the rapid technological innovation in the field of toilets and sewage systems after WWII, recycling systems have been reevaluated in recent years and efforts have been made to improve and promote the use of sewage sludge by companies that specialize in recycling technologies.

Introduction

With advanced toilet and sewerage technologies, many people in today's modern society believe that discussing human excrement is taboo, and people have almost no opportunity to engage in an in-depth discussion of the topic. This predicament, however, has developed relatively recently in society. In the past, human waste was used as fertilizer in Japanese farmland. The technique of returning composted human waste (known as shimogoe in Japanese and “night soil” in English) was prevalent and was actively utilized, particularly in suburbs of major urban centers such as Osaka and Edo (the former name of Tokyo).

Watanabe, for example, wrote about the relationship between vegetable cultivation and the use of urban waste, including night soil, that developed in the suburbs of the city of Edo, as part of his historical exploration of fertilization in suburban areas during the Edo period (1603–1867). This also included a comparison between Osaka and Kyoto in the West. Watanabe concluded the following: “local systems of organic material circulation formed between the early modern cities and the surrounding agricultural villages; the return of returned urban waste to the surrounding villages.” Watanabe also discussed how, during the Taishō period (1912–1926), the commercialization of urban human waste began to fade away gradually, and human waste was relegated to the status of waste. The relationship that had existed between urban and suburban areas finally ended during the post-WWII period of high economic growth. Thus, the use of night soil in Japan did not end with the Edo period but continued through the early modern period and up until the post-WWII period of rapid economic growth.

In the Japanese archipelago, smallpox unfolded a very diverse epidemiological landscape. In some areas, the epidemic occurred once every few decades and caused devastating damage, while in others, it was year-round and attacked only children. In the face of this mysterious phenomenon, people in each era developed their own theories on the causes of the epidemic and ways to deal with it. This paper reviews the history of such etiologies and coping strategies prior to the widespread use of vaccination in modern times.

Introduction: The historical perception of epidemics—how infectious diseases have been defined and dealt with

The phenomenon in which members of a population all fall ill at once has been seen time and time again throughout history, and the Japanese archipelago is no exception. Historical records dating back to antiquity prove that this bow-shaped island chain to the east of mainland China has indeed been the site of outbreaks of infectious diseases. In the Nihon shoki (日本書紀), Japan's oldest officially compiled history, the following is recorded to have taken place in the year Sujin 5 (Estimated circa 1st century B.C.), during the tenth Emperor's reign. “The disease spread throughout the country, taking people's lives, and the greater part of the population at that.” To have suffered an epidemic of such proportions must have been catastrophic for the nascent country.

What could cause a large number of people to suffer from the same afflictions at the same time? Ancient people believed the spread of epidemic diseases to be a supernatural phenomenon and so tried to suppress them by calling upon the power of divine spirits. Given their circumstances, this was the most “rational” way to approach the situation.

How we deal with infectious diseases is always informed by how we define them. In the 21st century, we understand the spread of infectious diseases as a chain reaction that starts with a physical pathogen entering the human body, causing it to suffer various symptoms. Measures are taken accordingly: we remove disease-causing pathogens through disinfection and sterilization, we halt the spread of disease through quarantine and travel-related control measures, and we develop our immunities against disease (whenever possible, through vaccination) to prevent infection.

This chapter explores the environmental history of Japanese swidden agriculture or yakihata, which has not received much attention from historians. Yakihata was not a primitive agriculture without change, but a technique that used fire to bring diversity to the ecosystem. One effect was to encourage the development of agroforestry, and from the 18th century onward, swidden agriculture became the foundation of plantation forestry. Ironically, modern forestry policy was insensitive to yakihata and sought to eliminate it to conserve forestry.

Introduction

Yakihata (or, alternatively, yakibata), a Japanese term for swidden agriculture or shifting cultivation, involving the clearing of forested lands in order to use them for agricultural purposes, provides an interesting perspective on the environmental history of Japan. Swidden cultivation works directly on the natural environment since it involves the burning of existing plants for the cultivation of useful crops for humans. Compared to standard agriculture on continuous farmland, yakihata cultivation seems to be relatively wild and destructive. Conversely, it seems to represent a very wise relationship between people and the environment, using fire to skillfully alter and exploit the natural environment. According to Stephen Pyne, an advocate of an environmental history of fire, shifting cultivation is a prime example of how humans create ecological conditions to their advantage through man-made burning. Yakihata agriculture can be a touchstone for considering the relationship between humans and the environment; it has been evaluated both positively and negatively in the past. This chapter provides a basic overview of the environmental history of swidden agriculture in Japan as well as some interesting research points, with reference to the author's research.

Many historians have understood swidden farming in Japan not as a mainstream agricultural practice but a marginal one, while historical geographers have largely compensated for the lack of research on yakihata. Some historians have recently begun to reconsider the swidden fields. These geographical and historical studies have been inspired by the ethnographical interest in shifting cultivation, which became dominant during the second half of the 20th century. Sasaki Kōmei (1929–2013), a key scholar in rediscovering swidden agriculture, attempted to understand yakihata as the basis of Japanese culture with an origin in the mountainous area of Southeast Asia.

In its modern and contemporary history, Japan attained prosperity in the international order led by the West, especially in its cooperative relationship with the United States. Meanwhile, the Japanese formed an identity as a developed country of the “West,” drawing a line that set themselves apart from other Asian countries. Lining up along this fault line are the territorial problems Japan has had with neighboring Russia, Korea and China. Even today, this fault line continues to separate Japan from its Asian neighbors politically. This chapter discusses Japan's identity from the perspective of the international order and territorial problems.

Introduction

In its modern and contemporary history, Japan attained prosperity in the international order led by the West, especially in its cooperative relationship with the United States. In the mid- 19th century, while the Western imperialist powers were expanding their colonies in Asia, Japan, an island nation in the Far East, was dragged onto the international stage. It then promoted modernization with the slogan of “leaving Asia and joining Europe” (datsu a nyū ō), expanded its territories, and emerged as a mighty empire and the only Asian colonial power. However, as a result of continuing expansion and by attempting to create a new non- Western order in East Asia, Japan pushed itself into World War II, ultimately losing most of the territories that it had advanced into. After World War II, Japan returned to an island nation of the Far East, and under the circumstances of the Cold War, grew to become the world's second-largest economy in the Western capitalist and non-communist camp under the umbrella of the United States. Meanwhile, the Japanese formed an identity as a developed country of the “West,” drawing a line that set themselves apart from other Asian countries. Lining up along this fault line are the territorial problems Japan has had with neighboring Russia, Korea and China. Even today in the 21st century, this fault line continues to separate Japan from its Asian neighbors politically. This chapter discusses Japan's identity from the perspective of the international order and territorial/border problems.

This chapter provides an overview of the history of life, industry and the environment in the Tokyo Bay area during the 20th century. Throughout this period, much of the Tokyo Bay area was reclaimed and large factories which consumed a great deal of imported resources and energy were built. This contributed to Japan's rapid economic growth, a precursor to the East Asian miracle, but it also brought environmental destruction, such as air pollution and destruction of the natural coastline, as well as keeping ordinary citizens and fishermen away from the seashore. However, there have been some attempts to correct these external diseconomies, and this chapter also introduces some of these attempts to provide some hints for achieving sustainable growth in the 21st century.

Introduction

Tokyo Bay is located at the center of Greater Tokyo, the world's largest megacity with a population of 38 million people. The bay has a total area of 1,380 km2 and a total coastline of 775 km. It is sandwiched between the Bōsō Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture to the east, the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture to the west, and the Kanto Plain including the Tokyo metropolis and surrounding areas to the north. More precisely, the sea area is north of the line connecting Sunosaki in Tateyama City, Chiba Prefecture, on the Bōsō Peninsula and Kenzaki in Miura City, Kanagawa Prefecture, on the Miura Peninsula. The area north of the line connecting Cape Futtsu in Futtsu City, Chiba Prefecture, and Kannonzaki in Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture, is called the Inner Bay, and the area to its south is called the Outer Bay. Tokyo Bay has a variety of sights, such as a group of factories including a petrochemical complex, a fish market in Toyosu (formerly located in Tsukiji, near Ginza) in Tokyo, Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu City, Chiba Prefecture, New Tokyo International Airport in Haneda, Ota Ward, and a beach in Miura City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture is also home to a US Navy base, the only non-US homeport for an aircraft carrier.

Alone among Japan's prefectures, Okinawa experienced a 27-year-long military occupation that fundamentally altered its history, and created a distinctive local politics, culture and economy that continue to speak to larger national and global issues. This chapter explores the contingencies that led to Okinawa's wartime and postwar militarization, and the ways Okinawans have actively challenged American and Japanese efforts to control their postwar narrative. Despite persistent grievances regarding a fragile local economy and continued heavy US military base burden, Okinawans have promoted new visions emphasizing the themes of peace and transnational cooperation that meaningfully connect their past to their future.

Introduction

Discussing Okinawa as part of Japan's “postwar” is a necessary yet awkward endeavor; while the history of Japan's southernmost prefecture has profound connections to the broader national story, it fits uneasily within its narrative conventions. The end of World War II for Okinawa represented a profound break greater and longer than that experienced by most mainland populations, but also a continuation of deep patterns that had shaped Okinawa's modern development and identity. Part of the Ryukyu archipelago stretching from southern Kyushu to the eastern coast of Taiwan, Okinawa prefecture's 48 inhabited islands had since the premodern eras served to connect Japan to its East Asian neighbors and vice versa; as Japan transformed itself into a modern empire these relations were reconfigured and Okinawa's role as intermediary changed also. During the early Meiji period it became Japan's foothold at its southern frontier, establishing Japanese sovereignty over the islands against Western incursions and Chinese claims. As Japan's power grew and its empire expanded to include larger and more economically significant territories like Taiwan, Okinawa's perceived importance to Japan decreased for a time, only to again become a critical defensive bulwark in the final desperate phase of the Asia-Pacific War. While Japan's defeat led to a radical reconfiguration of security strategy under American leadership, Okinawa's role as military “Keystone of the Pacific” continued to find new justifications despite the gradually diminishing US military base presence elsewhere in Japan.

Structure of this book

The arc-shaped Japanese archipelago, which is dotted along the eastern coast of the Eurasian Continent, stretches 3,000 kilometers from north to south. It has a total area of about 377,900 square kilometers, almost all of which belongs to the humid and temperate zone. Mountainous areas account for 70 percent of the land area, and farmland and residential land spread out in the narrow plains. Volcanic activities have continued unchanged since ancient times, typhoons repeatedly hit from the southern oceans in autumn, and there are many earthquakes and floods. We can easily characterize the archipelago as a disastrous one.

On the other hand, the Kuroshio current, a warm current from the south, and the Oyashio current, a cold current from the north, collide off the coast of Japan, and there are abundant fishery resources. In autumn, the whole country is ablaze with colored leaves; in winter, it snows mainly on the Sea of Japan side, and in spring, flowers bloom all at once and rice fields are planted. The so-called rainy season begins, and when the rainy season ends, hot summer comes.

This book is about the history of such an environment. The 16 contributors’ specialties include environmental sociology, human geography, history of science, medicine, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, cities and the like. They do not necessarily specialize only in environmental history, but they are all researchers who have been deeply involved in the history of the environment in a broad sense and the history of environmental change in Japan.

As the editor, I asked each author to convey both a general story that is easy for readers to learn and the detailed content of their own research. In this way, it was my intention that both those who are new to Japan's environmental history and those who have experience in the field would find this handbook a valuable resource. By selecting topics which span multiple fields and disciplines and balancing these with authors who can address the issues deeply, I can divide the book into five sections.

In Part 1 “Topology of Environmental History” three contributors discuss the importance of “topography” in the environmental history in Japan.

What did decolonization and the Cold War look like in US(Allied)-occupied Japan? Previously, historians have understood that decolonization had no significant impact on Japan because the Japanese empire lost its colonies instantly as a result of defeat in World War II. Historians have also explained the beginning of the Cold War and its impact on Japan in terms of the reverse course, a critical shift in US foreign policy toward occupied Japan during 1947 and 1948. This chapter challenges these conventional understandings and provides new insights into the history of early postwar Japan.

Introduction

Historical accounts on the formation of postwar Japan have often assumed a common temporal divide between wartime and postwar and have taken the form of an “island history.” In the conventional narrative, Emperor Hirohito's speech announcing Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, marks the “postwar” as a “new beginning.” The postwar is portrayed as both disconnected and inverted from the bleak wartime past, and this idea of discontinuity has dominated the narrative framework for decades. While some early works published by USbased Japan historians in the 1980s looked at the long historical trajectory of 20th-century Japan, a critical challenge to the temporal divide and the idea of discontinuity was posed in the 1990s by a group of international scholars who studied the “total war system.” Their edited volume, Total War and “Modernization,” has illuminated the radical social transformations created by the war and the lasting, formative impact these transformations had on postwar society. Similarly, historians Andrew Gordon and Nakamura Masanori use a “transwar” analysis to understand the recurring dynamic of social change straddling the wartime and postwar periods. Some Japanese scholars have also shed new light on the wartime origins of postwar democratic reforms under US Occupation. The new scholarship understands postwar Japan as the product of a long process continuous with past transformations, rather than as a completely “reborn” entity.

Despite recent methodological innovations about the temporal framework, much work on the formation of postwar Japan still operates within the same spatial framework of “island history” centered on a national unit of analysis, mostly on mainland Japan.

The following investigation will examine the progress of monetary, financial and fiscal reforms during the Allied Occupation of Japan, to argue that these reforms were a vital, if under-appreciated, component of the Allied Occupation's mission in Japan from 1945 to 1952. Moreover, policy achievements and shortcomings will be addressed in terms of the actual historical experience of monetary, financial and fiscal reform in the context of Japan's over-arching postwar economic rehabilitation. There is also an intuition and acknowledgement that there were many, inter-related and complex processes at play in mid-20th-century Japan—systematic, institutional, and increasingly global—that were ultimately, if imperfectly, reducible to personalities and political beliefs.

Introduction

The American anti-inflationist, balanced-budget, export-based model of economic recovery, shown to be successful in postwar Germany, quickly became the Truman administration's archetype for Japan and Korea. Occupation-era monetary, financial and fiscal reforms provided stable, new, national currencies which, despite the grave economic, ideological, political and military threats posed by the global Cold and hot Korean Wars, were an essential precondition of the remarkable Japanese and Korean postwar experiences of economic growth. Some historians and policy makers have gone so far as to claim that the economic rise of Japan was “probably the greatest legacy of Pax Americana,” being shaped and controlled almost entirely by the United States of America through “years of direct rule” during the Occupation, the “reforms of Joseph Dodge,” and the “Bretton Woods system itself.”

The following investigation will examine the progress, or lack thereof, of monetary, financial and fiscal reforms during the Allied Occupation of Japan, and to argue that these reforms were a vital, if under-appreciated, component of the Allied Occupation's mission in Japan from 1945 to 1952. Moreover, policy achievements and shortcomings will be addressed in terms of the actual historical experience of monetary, financial and fiscal reform in the context of Japan's over-arching postwar economic rehabilitation. There is also an intuition and acknowledgement that there were many, inter-related and complex processes at play in mid-20th-century Japan—systematic, institutional, and increasingly global—that were ultimately, if imperfectly, reducible to personalities and political beliefs.

In this chapter, the history of forests and forestry in Japan is introduced, covering the Totman forest transition theory, as well as imperial forestry. The concept of mountains and forests in Japan and the concept of forest management are summarized from the perspective of resource utilization and environmental conservation. While “forestry history”—the history of wood resource utilization—from the early modern period, remains important, academic interest has shifted to “forest history,” which is the history of environmental conservation in mountains and forests. Finally, the progression of afforestation in Japan's satoyama during the 150 years since the Meiji era, when modernization progressed, is explained from the perspective of the spread of the greening campaign.

Introduction: Some issues in the field of environmental history

Probably the most widely known historical study of Japanese forests in the world is Totman's The Green Archipelago. This ground-breaking book has been widely read in Japan, thanks in part to the excellent translation and commentary by the eminent forestry scholar Kumazaki Minoru. However, as Kumazaki recently recounted, very little research on the history of Japanese forests and forestry has been disseminated abroad, not only before Totman but also afterwards, despite the vast accumulation of work written in Japanese. For this reason, this book is almost the only reference available to overseas researchers who cannot read Japanese. For example, Williams, who provided a global history of deforestation, and Bennett, who covered the modern history of the plantation and protected areas worldwide, also lacked depth in their descriptions of Japan. Totman was primarily concerned with the use and production of building materials in the pre-modern period and did not cover the full history of Japanese forests and forestry, particularly missing the resource utilization and environmental conservation in the modern period that is directly relevant to the present. Totman wrote about forests and forestry in Japan from the modern period onwards, but this is inadequate. Also, the forestry administration by clans in the early modern period was probably not as smooth as Totman's suggests.

Secondly, the forest transition theory is a way of illustrating the impact of human activities on forests.

In this chapter, I show the development history of modern Japanese agricultural technology, focusing on rice breeding, tractors, chemical fertilizers and the spread of pesticides. To that end, we must consider not only the mainland of Japan, but also the transformation of the former colonies. Furthermore, the short history of organic farming and Teikei (“partnership”) movement to connect producers and consumers, which was born to compete with these modern agricultural techniques, is also touched upon.

Introduction

The Japanese archipelago, surrounded by the sea, has a mild and humid climate. About twothirds of the country is mountainous forested area and the remaining is plains. Most Japanese people live and have lived on the plains, amid rivers and natural and human-made ponds of various sizes, cultivating rice, wheat, soybeans and many kinds of vegetables. Currently, the total area of cultivated land in Japan is about 2.4 million ha of paddy fields and about 2 million ha of plowed fields, occupying about 12 percent of the total area of Japan.

If one travels across the Japanese archipelago by rail and sees the landscape through the window of the train, it would not be strange to regard Japan as a rich agricultural country with its many paddy fields with systematic irrigation and plowed fields for other crops. It is not difficult to identify mandarin orange orchards on the sides of hills, well-manicured tea fields, apple orchards, and vineyards in the rural areas of Japan. In Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, which has a humid continental climate, there are vast fields of potatoes, onions, soybeans, red beans and sugar beets, while subtropical island regions such as Okinawa have fields of sugarcane and pineapple.

However, from an economic point of view, agriculture does not now comprise a significant sector in Japan as compared with other industrial countries. According to 1970 statistics, the percentage of Japan's GDP accounted for by agricultural production was about 5.56 percent; but according to 2018 statistics, it is only about 0.86 percent. In addition, the area of cultivated land per operator averages 2.87 ha (2017) in Japan, as compared to 179 ha (2016) in the United States, 58.6 ha (2013) in Germany, and 16.1 ha (2013) in the European Union as a whole.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a series of financial and environmental shocks provoked anxiety, insecurity and uncertainty. For the first time in the postwar period, hope for a brighter future was shaken. But even as there were fears of loss and retrogression, there was also doubt about what to defend and preserve. Postwar dreams of economic growth, mass consumerism and middle-classness seemed to be in crisis. This chapter explores ideas of value and waste, comfort and panic, strength and fragility, to argue that the early 1970s were an inflection point in the longer arc of the postwar period.

Introduction

In October 1974, the Economic Planning Agency issued a diagnosis of contemporary ills. The nation, it determined, was suffering the lingering discontents of an “era of anxiety,” or fuan no jidai. In its annual white paper on people's lifestyles, the agency identified a litany of problems that had been eroding feelings of stability. Prime among them were environmental pollution, impending resource shortages and price inflation. To convey a sense of the scale of these challenges, the agency noted that these were global phenomena, especially resonant among the economically advanced countries of the world. In the face of such difficulties, the stated purpose of the report was to help the nation overcome the pervasive unease that had come to characterize the early 1970s.

The Economic Planning Agency's white paper described and exemplified the uncertainties and insecurities of these years. Cracks in the foundation of economic growth seemed to be widening, sheared open by the humanitarian and environmental damage wrought by industrial pollution, worries about finite natural resources and rising prices. As people realized the severity of these strains and felt them in their day-to-day lives, some raised questions about the costs and consequences of the nation's rapid economic growth. At the same time, many grasped more tightly onto middle-class lifestyles. In the Economic Planning Agency's view, people were dissatisfied because of the gap between expanding desires, stoked by economic expansion, and their lagging and unequal realization. But perhaps the most immediate and acute sentiment of these years was fear of the deterioration, or even the loss, of middle-class lifestyles that attested to individual and national achievement.

Instead of the standard division of postwar Japanese political history into three periods—early postwar, postwar and post-postwar—it can be argued that it is better to make the simpler and more dynamic distinction between the rise of the left up to the 1970s and then the rise and dominance of the New Right from the late 1980s onwards. Most historians of the postwar period tend to focus on cultural continuity or gradual change but such narratives mask dramatic changes so that the meaning of left and right, and even what it means to be Japanese, has seen a much more radical shift overtime during the period than most historians and certainly most Japanese seem willing to acknowledge. Looking at the change in the left and right in Japanese postwar history helps to make more sense of key events and obvious shifts in the political landscape overtime than can be understood through standard historical accounts of postwar Japan.

Introduction

When I first came to Japan in 1980 as a university student, Japanese students were strongly influenced by the ideas of the political left. The word feudal (hōken) was used to discuss what they viewed as outdated traditional practices, drawing for the most part unconsciously on earlier Marxist debates. Few young people admitted to supporting the conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party. In contrast, in 2019, when I began to work at a Japanese university for the first time in many years, all the young people I met demonstrated immense pride in Japan rather than being critical of it. At first, they would invariably ask if I like Japan and seemed to crave reassurance that Japan was a great and special place. It is not that students in 1980 did not love Japan, with some exceptions, but that my recent conversations with young people focused on nationalistic pride. At the time, Abe Shinzō was still prime minister and his book Towards a Beautiful Country (Utsukushii kuni e), which he published in 2006 during his rise to power, was in the background, in sharp contrast to the ideas of the political left in the 1970s.

There is a clear explanation for this shift from left to right among young people. In explaining it, it is necessary to rethink the periodization of what is meant by postwar Japan.

This chapter focuses on the US thermonuclear tests in the Pacific and their influences on Japanese tuna fishermen between 1954 and 1963. Besides the well-known Daigo Fukuryu Maru [Lucky Dragon 5], many other tuna vessels were contaminated by radioactive fallout, but very little is known about who those fishermen were, where they came from, and why they needed to risk their lives to catch tuna. This chapter explores the complicated history and structure of the Japanese tuna fishing industry, and shows which part (and which people) of the multi-layered industry were the most vulnerable to radioactive contamination. It further examines why the victimized fishermen were invisible in the mainstream anti-nuclear movement in Japan, and shows the alternative ways in which they expressed their dissent.

Introduction

Japanese tuna fisheries date back to ancient times. Tuna bones have been excavated even in the remains of Jōmon period (12,000–13,000 years ago) villages. In the Japanese language, maguro—typically referring to bluefin tuna (hon-maguro), but also including bigeyes (mebachi), yellowfins (kiwada), and albacores (binchō) depending on the situation—are distinguished from katsuo (skipjacks), although all these species are often indiscriminately called tuna in English. This distinction is important because it is relevant to the theme of this chapter: who and what were affected by thermonuclear tests in the Pacific during the early Cold War era. Daigo Fukuryū Maru [Lucky Dragon 5] and other vessels contaminated by radioactive fallout were smaller tuna boats mostly targeting bluefins, but not skipjacks or albacores.

Skipjacks have traditionally been processed into katsuobushi, which is the dried fillet essential for various Japanese recipes as an ingredient in broth. Historical records show that it was produced as far back as the 8th century, but it was a luxury item until the early 20th century. Kochi and Wakayama Prefectures were famous producers of katsuobushi, and it was also produced in Yaizu (Shizuoka Prefecture), Kagoshima, Okinawa, and in the Japanese colonies and mandate islands. A historian of Taiwanese fisheries says that the colonial Japanese government encouraged the production of katsuobushi (as well as sōdabushi, a less expensive version made from different species of skipjack) in Taiwan, and 85 percent of the product was sent to Japan, while the remaining 15 percent was consumed in Taiwan.