Description
Book SynopsisMax Ward explores the Japanese state's efforts to suppress political radicalism in the 1920s and 1930s through the enforcement of what it called thought crime, providing a window into understanding how modern states develop ideological apparatuses to subject their respective populations.
Trade Review"[Ward] has provided his readers with a well-written account of how between 1920 and the 1930s the Japanese nation endeavored to suppress political radicalism." -- Augustine Adu Frimpong * African and Asian Studies *
"
Thought Crime offers a lucid reflection on theories of power and the modern state while refusing to fetishize the particularities of the Japanese case." -- David Ambaras * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *
"
Thought Crime sets itself apart from past studies of the Peace Preservation Law by developing a theory of imperial ideology that focuses on its effects on those in proximity to it: bureaucrats, thought criminals, and those who were mobilized to rehabilitate them." -- John Person * Journal of Asian Studies *
"
Thought Crime is a thought-provoking, intelligent, and necessary book.… It is a must-read for serious students of modern Japanese political and intellectual history." -- Jeremy A. Yellen * Journal of Japanese Studies *
"Rigorous and creative explorations of the multiple modalities of state power are much needed in the study of the cultural and social history of modern Japan, and in that respect
Thought Crime makes an invaluable contribution to the field." -- Tomoko Seto * Monumenta Nipponica *
"This book is nicely written and well-organized, and the author makes excellent use of Japanese-language primary sources. Overall, this is an outstanding piece of research. It makes a substantial contribution to existing works on this topic and is recommended for use in graduate seminars on modern Japanese history." -- Walter Skya * History: Reviews of New Books *
"This analysis is a valuable service in increasing our knowledge of the rise of Japanese militarism and the coming of WWII in Asa.… Recommended. Graduate students through faculty." -- Q. E. Wang * Choice *
"
Thought Crime is a theoretically and archivally rich intervention into discourse surrounding
tenkō and the
kokutai. . . . Max Ward's incorporation of theory into the body of literature on thought crime in Japan yields an important rethinking of politics and ideology during this most fraught of historical periods." -- Jason Morgan * Japan Review *
Table of ContentsPreface: Policing Ideological Threats, Then and Now ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction. The Ghost in the Machine: Emperor System Ideology and the Peace Preservation Law Apparatus 1
1. Kokutai and the Aporias of Imperial Sovereignty: The Passage of the Peace Preservation Law in 1925 21
2. Transcriptions of Power: Repression and Rehabilitation in the Early Peace Preservation Law Apparatus, 1925-1933 49
3. Apparatuses of Subjection: The Rehabilitation of Thought Criminals in the Early 1930s 77
4. Nurturing the Ideological Avowal: Toward the Codification of Tenkō in 1936 123
5. The Ideology of Conversion: Tenkō on the Eve of Total War 145
Epilogue. The Legacies of the Thought Rehabilitation System in Postwar Japan 179
Notes 185
Bibliography 261
Index 281
