A Time of Crisis: Japan, the Great Depression, and Rural Revitalization

by Smith, Kerry

• ISBN13: 9780674003705
• ISBN10: 0674003705
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-16
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

This study of Japan's transformation by the economic crises of the 1930s focuses on efforts to overcome the effects of the Great Depression in rural areas, particularly the activities of local activists and policymakers in Tokyo. The author argues that these efforts changed the nation's thinking about the countryside, as well as Japan's conception of its economic and cultural relationship to the nation, in ways that have important implications for our understanding of both the war years and the postwar reconstruction. The reactions of inhabitants of rural areas to the depression shed new light on how average Japanese responded to the problems of modernization and how they re-created the countryside.

Table of Contents

Tables, Maps, and Figures	xv
Abbreviations	xvii
Japan in a Time of Crisis	1	(18)
A Land of Milk and Honey	6	(4)
Sekishiba	10	(2)
Revitalization and the Modern Countryside	12	(7)
Locations	19	(23)
The Tohoku	20	(4)
Fukushima and Aizu	24	(3)
Kitakata	27	(5)
Sekishiba	32	(10)
The Rural Depression	42	(42)
The Crises of the 1920s	44	(6)
The Great Depression: Crises of Farms and Finances	50	(18)
The Crises of Community	68	(12)
The Crises of State and Nation	80	(4)
Rescuing the Countryside	84	(51)
Yesterday's Countryside	87	(7)
Putting Farmers First: The Agrarianist Campaign for Relief	94	(16)
The Agrarianist Legacy	110	(3)
Managing Debt	113	(16)
Debt Arrangement in Practice	129	(3)
Conclusions	132	(3)
Crafting Rural Relief	135	(37)
Public Works as Relief	137	(9)
Relief at the Village Level	146	(6)
Assessing Rural Relief	152	(3)
The Limits of Relief	155	(11)
The Military and Rural Relief	166	(4)
Conclusions	170	(2)
Revitalization	172	(52)
Local Reform	174	(14)
Self-revitalization on the National Stage	188	(4)
Development of a National Self-revitalization Program	192	(4)
Self-revitalization, the Ministries, and the Sixty-third Diet	196	(10)
The Framework of Revitalization	206	(8)
The Popular Culture of Reform and Revitalization	214	(10)
Revitalization in a Famine Year: Sekishiba, 1934-1935	224	(45)
Embracing Revitalization	225	(14)
Revitalization Strategies	239	(2)
The 1934 Famine	241	(10)
Surviving the Famine	251	(8)
A Village Plans	259	(7)
The Best-Laid Plans	266	(3)
The Village Economy, 1935-1939	269	(19)
Organizing for Recovery	271	(6)
Community Infrastructure	277	(4)
Farm Production	281	(3)
Family and Village Finances	284	(2)
From Recovery to War: The Village Economy at the End of the Decade	286	(2)
Reconstructing Community: Sekishiba, 1935-1937	288	(37)
The Mayor, the Businessman, and the Committee	291	(12)
Harmony, Culture, and Discipline	303	(1)
Yabe and the Hotoku Societies	304	(8)
The Hamlet Assemblies	312	(7)
The Reform of Daily Life	319	(2)
Conclusions	321	(4)
Sekishiba in Wartime	325	(28)
Revitalization, the Rural Economy, and the Early Years of the War	329	(6)
Mobilizing the Village	335	(4)
Village Mainstays	339	(6)
Emigration and Revitalization	345	(4)
Mobilization and the Modern Countryside	349	(4)
The Elusive Revitalized Village	353	(116)
Occupation Reforms	353	(5)
Creating the Prosperous Countryside	358	(3)
City and Country	361	(5)
The Elusive Revitalized Village	366	(7)
Appendix
Membership of Sekishiba's Economic Revitalization Committee, 1934	373	(6)
Reference Matter
Notes	379	(72)
Works Cited	451	(18)
Index	469