Observers of early twenty-first-century Japan commonly note economic, political, and social crisis, on the one hand, and pessimism, lethargy, or helplessness about the possibility of reform, on the other. Yet Japan's civil society was idealistic and energetic in the early postwar decades. What happened? The reform movement that captured much of the vitality of the early postwar decades was either foreclosed, as many were co-opted in the “all- for-growth” economism, consumerism, and the corporation, or crushed in successive waves of repression of dissidence as the cold war order took shape. Political parties sacrificed broad vision and ideals to narrow-interest articulation. While the mass base of the reform movement was discouraged, demoralized, and depoliticized, one minority in the late 1960s turned to violent revolution and another in the late 1980s turned inward to seek spiritual satisfaction. Both paths led to violence. This article looks at the course of the student movement between the late 1940s and the late 1970s, with particular reference to the Japan Red Army, and at the new religious movement Aum Supreme Truth in the 1980s and 1990s. Both adopted “terrorist” tactics, by almost any understanding of that term. However, they were children of their times, reflecting the same deep social, political, and moral problems that Japan as a whole continues to face in the early twenty-first century.

A crop of new movies released to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre is set to again dredge up the controversy about one of the 20th Century's most notorious events. How will Japan react?

One way to learn what happened in one of history's most noxious but disputed episodes is to ask Mizushima Satoru. After what he calls “exhaustive research” on the seizure of the then Chinese capital by Japanese troops in 1937, estimated to have cost anywhere from 20,000 to 300,000 lives, Mizushima offers a very precise figure for the number of illegal deaths: zero.

The foremost Western authority on the life and times of Emperor Hirohito – known posthumously as the Emperor Showa – talked to The Japan Times about the role of Japan's former “living god” and his place in history in comparison with other powerful twentieth century leaders including Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt and George W. Bush.

In 2000, historian Herbert P. Bix shattered the image of Emperor Hirohito as a mere figurehead who was detached from Japan's imperialist warmongering in the first half of the 20th century.

Shigemoto Yasuhiko is recalling the day he first saw the incinerated city of Hiroshima as a 15-year-old boy.

“I had escaped the blast and I came to check on my friends,” he says. “I walked across this bridge and even five days after the bomb, it was covered with charred bodies. I had to step over them, but there were so many I walked on someone. The river underneath was full of people too, floating like dead fish. There are no words to describe what I felt.”

Much about our current world is unparalleled: holes in the ozone layer, the commercial patenting of life forms, degrading poverty on a massive scale, and, more hopefully, the rise of concepts of global citizenship and universal human rights. Less visible but equally unprecedented is the global omnipresence and unparalleled lethality of the U.S. military, and the ambition with which it is being deployed around the world. These bases bristle with an inventory of weapons whose worth is measured in the trillions and whose killing power could wipe out all life on earth several times over. Their presence is meant to signal, and at times demonstrate, that the US is able and willing to attempt to control events in other regions militarily. The start of a new administration in Washington, and the possibility that world economic depression will give rise to new tensions and challenges, provides an important occasion to review the global structures of American power.

In Ian Morris's book on energy and civilization, Why the West Rules–For Now, he writes that “greedy, lazy, frightened people” develop institutions that express “their own preferred balance among being comfortable, working as little as possible, and being safe.” But under conditions of crisis, they often innovate very rapidly. And, as is often noted, energy policy is not driven by elections but rather by crises.

Since the 9.0 quake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11 and the situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant rapidly degenerated, Fukushima residents and politicians, those most afflicted by the current crisis, have criticized the lack of information provided by TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) and the government. Prefectures with a concentration of nuclear power plants like Fukui and diverse citizens' groups have also sounded off, condemning the lack of information and delay in releasing critical facts to the public. A particular concern is that the government initially left far too much up to the company, was slow in establishing a headquarters to coordinate joint response, and initially accepted TEPCOs vague description of the situation and assurances, many of which have since turned out to be suspect. Tabloid Sponichi gives a credible account of an exasperated Prime Minister Kan Naoto blowing up at TEPCO representatives asking, “Just what the hell is going on!?” (一体どうなっているんだ) on the 15th. This is a question and, indeed, a tone shared widely among the general public. Jiji now reports that Kan subsequently continued his private criticism of TEPCO, accusing them of having a “very shallow sense of urgency”, even on the 16th as the situation at the site deteriorated. The popular press continues to take shots at the “irresponsibility” and lack of transparency of TEPCO higher ups while nuclear energy specialists share their criticisms with the public. Scientists and even amateurs with Geiger counters, many of whom are communicating through blogs and social media, a dimension of civil society that has proven enormously important in the aftermath of the earthquake, have worked to make independent information available. In some cases, this has assuaged public fears, in others, however, by calling into question bland official nostrums and presenting evidence of a deteriorating situation at the plants, it has simultaneously increased public understanding of the evolving situation and elevated fears.

[In this concise article, Harvard Economist Richard Freeman shows us that a spectre is haunting the industrialized societies, and above all the workers of these countries. Though little recognized in Japan and elsewhere, there has been an effective doubling of the global labour force (that is workers producing for international markets) over the past decade and a half, through the entry of Chinese, Indian, Russian and other workers into the global economy. The effective supply of capital, on the other hand, has virtually remained unchanged. With such a massive increase in the supply of labour, its relative share of the returns from production inevitably decline. One important dimension of this decline is the ability of increasingly footloose capital to find cheaper labour to employ. Morgan Stanley's Chief Economist Stephen Roach has long referred to a “global labour arbitrage” wherein high-wage jobs in the developed world are eliminated in favor of low-wage jobs in the developing world. He has argued that this is not limited to manufacturing, but also extends to such service industries as banking. But capital does not have to move to keep pressure on wages and salaries. Even work that is not at present outsourced may experience this pressure if the cost of labour becomes excessive relative to global benchmarks (including premiums for developed world levels of political stability and infrastructure).

A fighter of the former Japanese navy is on display on the first floor of the Yushukan war memorial museum at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. It is a Mitsubishi Zero-type shipboard fighter model 52, one of the Zero fighters. The plane can also be viewed from the outside through a glass wall.

There's been much discussion of constitutional revision in Japan. In November 2005, celebrating the 50th anniversary of its formation, the Liberal-Democratic Party published its “Draft of a New Constitution.” In this rapidly changing world, it's quite risky for a developed country to make a constitution with an eye to the 21st century. Why? Because this is an age in which the nation-states that shape the modern era are changing dramatically, and because we still can't see what lies ahead.

Based on ethnographic research in tsunami evacuation shelters in the coastal town of Yamada, this article explores how people have employed hygiene practices to regain control over their lives after the tsunami disaster of March 11, 2011. By considering toilets and baths, shoes and food, face masks and cleaning routines, it discusses issues of health and wellbeing, and shame and solidarity, and shows how people have resorted to han (group) structures and gender division of labor to create a temporary home. Co-operating in cleaning practices has helped them to regain stability and to re-create social order.

Eight years ago, on the eve of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, a bipartisan group of Washington experts released the Armitage Report, named after Richard Armitage, one of the main authors and an eventual deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush.

The Japanese Occupation is generally remembered as primarily an American affair and as a dichotomous relationship between Japan and the United States. However, it was an Allied Occupation, and, despite the persistence of selective historical memories, there was a distinct and at times contentious Allied presence, contribution, and experience. The Occupation provided a terrain on which the victor nations, believing their social, economic and political values vindicated by victory, competed to reshape the character of Japan's modernity. One Ally that participated in this process, and often acted as a dissenting voice, was Australia. Examining the involvement of additional participants in the Occupation does not challenge the notion of US dominance, but does demonstrate that others periodically played significant roles in both administering the Occupation and in challenging US policies.

A week into Japan's crisis, when many of my spooked friends had already decamped west, south or abroad, I urged my pregnant partner Nanako to leave Tokyo for the apparent safety of Kansai. She wasn’t happy and for good reason: I was staying behind, her parents were in Tokyo and she knew nobody in Osaka. Two days before, my sister and boyfriend had cut short a holiday in Japan and flown to Hong Kong after a painful haranguing from my mother in Ireland.

[What is the driving force behind Japan's policy in the Middle East? Can it be summed up in one word, oil? Is Japan essentially the lapdog of the United States, or has it established an independent position on contentious issues in the region such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Iraq War, and Iran's nuclear development? Raquel Shaoul and John de Boer take up these questions in two articles as they evaluate Japan's impact on the Middle East.]

The nature of Japan's Middle East policy vis-avis Middle East regional issues during the past 30 years can be summarized by the following two main characteristics: First, a low political profile, which has meant a policy of little involvement and non-commitment. Although Japan's political involvement has been increasing since the first oil shock in the early 1970s, and there was incremental movement towards greater economic involvement in the region during the 1980s, a low political commitment remained till the early 1990s.

We have recently crossed the five-year mark since the American invasion of Iraq. President George W. Bush used the occasion to triumphantly declare that, due to his decision to invade, ‘the world is better, and the United States of America is safer.‘

I think the Constitution of Japan is well formulated. The preamble starts out saying that we pledge perpetual peace: we are “resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government.”

And, rather than defining peace just in this narrow sense, it goes on to say “all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.” This means that it advocates “the right to live in peace,” while apparently holding within this vision poverty and starvation, disaster and disease, or various kinds of gaps as factors leading to social disintegration and conflicts.