The author argues that interactions between the movement and US Cold Warriors had a profound and lasting impact on Japanese society and Japan–US relations.

This is a concise, reliable guide to the people, places, events, and ideas of significance from the Meiji Restoration to the present.

Conformist, mute and malleable? Andrews tackles head-on this absurd caricature of Japanese society in his fascinating history of its militant sub-cultures, radical societies and well-established traditions of dissent Following the March 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, the media remarked with surprise on how thousands of demonstrators had flocked to the streets of Tokyo. But mass protest movements are nothing new in Japan and the post-war period experienced years of unrest and violence on both sides of the political spectrum: from demos to riots, strikes, campus occupations, faction infighting, assassinations and even international terrorism. This is the first comprehensive history in English of political radicalism and counterculture in Japan, as well as the artistic developments during this turbulent time. It chronicles the major events and movements from 1945 to the new flowering of protests and civil dissent in the wake of Fukushima. Introducing readers to often ignored aspects of Japanese society, it explores the fascinating ideologies and personalities on the Right and the Left, including the student movement, militant groups and communes. While some elements parallel developments in Europe and America, much of Japan's radical recent past (and present) is unique and offers valuable lessons for understanding the context to the new waves of anti-government protests the nation is currently witnessing.

Tracing Japanese Leftist Political Activism (1957–2017) tells the story of the Japanese Red Army (JRA), a militant left-wing group founded in 1971 which was involved in numerous terrorist attacks. It traces the origins of the group in the Japanese New Left in the 1960s and looks at Red Army groups of the early 1970s in Japan, such as the Red Army Faction, and the United Red Army which became infamous for murdering its own members. The book also examines the JRA's trans- and international links with other militant groups including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as the networks of intellectuals and fellow activists who supported them. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of terrorism, radicalism, and Japanese social history.

Since the adoption of the 1947 Constitution of Japan, the document has become a contested symbol of contrasting visions of Japan. Japanese Constitutional Revisionism and Civic Activism is a volume which examines the history of Japan’s constitutional debates, key legal decisions and interpretations, the history and variety of activism, and activists’ ties to party politics and to fellow activists overseas.

This book examines the widespread protests which took place in Japan in 1960 against the renewal of the US-Japan Security Treaty and assesses their far-reaching impact. It emphasizes the scale of the protests, at the climax of which hundreds of thousands of protestors surrounded Japan's National Diet building on nearly a daily basis, and large protests took place in other cities and towns all across Japan. It considers the results of the protests, which included the cancellation of President Eisenhower’s state visit and Prime Minister Kishi’s removal from office, and argues that although the protests apparently failed in that the Security Treaty was renewed and the Liberal Democratic Party remained in power, nevertheless the protests brought about subtle lasting changes in Japan: they revealed many latent societal and political tensions, and they compelled the ruling establishment to reshape itself, having to take seriously non-militarization and the need to listen to the people. The events are analysed in terms of social movement dynamics, with comparative references to the Western European protests of 1968.