{"product_id":"the-proletarian-gamble-9780822344179","title":"The Proletarian Gamble","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003eKoreans constituted the largest colonial labor force in imperial Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Caught between the Scylla of agricultural destitution in Korea and the Charybdis of industrial depression in Japan, migrant Korean peasants arrived on Japanese soil amid extreme instability in the labor and housing markets. In \u003ci\u003eThe Proletarian Gamble\u003c\/i\u003e, Ken C. Kawashima maintains that contingent labor is a defining characteristic of capitalist commodity economies. He scrutinizes how the labor power of Korean workers in Japan was commodified, and how these workers both fought against the racist and contingent conditions of exchange and combated institutionalized racism.\u003cp\u003eKawashima draws on previously unseen archival materials from interwar Japan as he describes how Korean migrants struggled against various recruitment practices, unfair and discriminatory wages, sudden firings, racist housing practices, and excessive bureaucratic red tape. Demonstrating that there was no singl\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Proletarian Gamble\u003c\/i\u003e provides students of modern Japanese-Korean history with a meticulously researched window into the lives of Korean labor migrants to Japan. Kawashima’s efforts will prove invaluable to students of Korean-Japanese affairs, but also to those interested in labor and migration issues, as well. This book should be required reading for all who enjoy the convenience of Japan’s extensive railway network, given the critical role that the Koreans described within played in laying much of its foundation.” - Mark E. Caprio, \u003ci\u003eActa Koreana\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[F]irst-rate, indispensible reading on Korean workers in the Japanese empire. . .” - Jinhee Lee, \u003ci\u003eJournal of Asian Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ken Kawashima’s book \u003ci\u003eThe Proletarian Gamble\u003c\/i\u003e is a much needed and long overdue contribution to the fields of labor history and\u003ci\u003e zainichi\u003c\/i\u003e (resident-Korean) studies in Japan. . . . Kawashima offer[s] his readers a highly nuanced, eye-opening account of the experience of Korean day labor, and the role that particular institutions played in shaping that experience.” - Samuel Perry, \u003ci\u003eInternational Journal of Asian Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[T]his book struck me not only for its stimulating methodologies, but also for its careful empirical observation. This seems to me to be a relatively rare and praiseworthy combination in any academic setting.” - Jae-Won Sun, \u003ci\u003ePacific Affairs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This book is at once refreshingly old-fashioned and innovative. . . . Kawashima’s study is generally persuasive, in places brilliant. . . . [I]n foregrounding contingency and offering a careful theoretical grounding for his analysis, Kawashima has achieved a great deal.” - Andrew Gordon, \u003ci\u003eJournal of Social History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kawashima has delivered a well-researched social history that should be added to the reading list of all serious students of modern Korea and Japan.” - Christopher Gerteis,\u003ci\u003e American Historical Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This book establishes Ken C. Kawashima not simply as one of the best students of modern Japanese history in the world, but as one with a rare facility for effective use of theory amid a plethora of primary sources in Japanese and Korean. This book illustrates at once a very detailed daily life of Korean day workers in various Japanese cities, a study thoroughly at home with both modern Japanese and Korean history, and an author who is fully versed in a wide body of theory—Marx, Benjamin, Althusser, Foucault, Žižek, and many others. It is simply the best book in East Asian history that I have read in many years.”—\u003cb\u003eBruce Cumings\u003c\/b\u003e, University of Chicago\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Proletarian Gamble\u003c\/i\u003e provides students of modern Japanese-Korean history with a meticulously researched window into the lives of Korean labor migrants to Japan. Kawashima’s efforts will prove invaluable to students of Korean-Japanese affairs, but also to those interested in labor and migration issues, as well. This book should be required reading for all who enjoy the convenience of Japan’s extensive railway network, given the critical role that the Koreans described within played in laying much of its foundation.” -- Mark E. Caprio * Acta Koreana *\u003cbr\u003e“[F]irst-rate, indispensible reading on Korean workers in the Japanese empire. . .” -- Jinhee Lee * Journal of Asian Studies *\u003cbr\u003e“[T]his book struck me not only for its stimulating methodologies, but also for its careful empirical observation. This seems to me to be a relatively rare and praiseworthy combination in any academic setting.” -- Jae-Won Sun * Pacific Affairs *\u003cbr\u003e“Kawashima has delivered a well-researched social history that should be added to the reading list of all serious students of modern Korea and Japan.” -- Christopher Gerteis * American Historical Review *\u003cbr\u003e“Ken Kawashima’s book \u003ci\u003eThe Proletarian Gamble\u003c\/i\u003e is a much needed and long overdue contribution to the fields of labor history and\u003ci\u003e zainichi\u003c\/i\u003e (resident-Korean) studies in Japan. . . . Kawashima offer[s] his readers a highly nuanced, eye-opening account of the experience of Korean day labor, and the role that particular institutions played in shaping that experience.” -- Samuel Perry * International Journal of Asian Studies *\u003cbr\u003e“This book is at once refreshingly old-fashioned and innovative. . . . Kawashima’s study is generally persuasive, in places brilliant. . . . [I]n foregrounding contingency and offering a careful theoretical grounding for his analysis, Kawashima has achieved a great deal.” -- Andrew Gordon * Journal of Social History *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction: The Proletarian Gamble 1\u003cbr\u003e 1. The Birth of the Uncontrollable Colonial Surplus: A Prehistory of the Korean Problem 25\u003cbr\u003e 2. The Colonial Surplus and the Virtual Pauper 45\u003cbr\u003e 3. Intermediary Exploitation: Korean Workers in the Day Labor Market 67\u003cbr\u003e 4. Urban Expropriation and the Threat of the Outside: Korean Tenant Struggles against Housing Insecurity 94\u003cbr\u003e 5. The Obscene, Violent Supplement of State Power: Korean Welfare and Class Warfare in Interwar Japan 130\u003cbr\u003e 6. At the Gates of Unemployment: The Struggles of Unemployed Korean Workers 169\u003cbr\u003e Epilogue 204\u003cbr\u003e Appendix 1. Korean Self-help and Social Work Organizations in Japan 217\u003cbr\u003e Appendix 2. A Timeline of Anti-Sōaikai Activity 227\u003cbr\u003e Notes 231\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography 269\u003cbr\u003e Index 287\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406054891863,"sku":"9780822344179","price":20.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822344179.jpg?v=1730494378","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-proletarian-gamble-9780822344179","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}