Uses diaries, memoirs, fiction, trial testimony, personal recollections, and eyewitness accounts to weave a fascinating tale of what ordinary Japanese endured throughout their country's booming economic growth.

This compelling social history uses diaries, memoirs, fiction, trial testimony, personal recollections, and eyewitness accounts to weave a fascinating tale of what ordinary Japanese endured throughout their country’s era of economic growth. Through vivid, often wrenching accounts of peasants, miners, textile workers, rebels, and prostitutes, Mikiso Hane forces us to see Japan’s “modern century” (from the beginnings of contact with the West to World War II) through fresh eyes. In doing so, he mounts a formidable challenge to the success story of Japan’s “economic miracle.” Starting with the Meiji restoration of 1868, Hane vividly illustrates how modernization actually widened the gulf, economically and socially, between rich and poor, between the mo-bo and mo-ga (“modern boy” and “modern girl”) of the cities and their rural counterparts. He interlaces his scholarly narrative with sharply etched individual stories that allow us see Japan from the bottom up. We feel the back-breaking labor of a typical farm family; the anguish of poverty-stricken parents forced to send their daughters to Japan’s new mills, factories, and brothels; the hopelessness in rural areas scourged by famine; the proud defiance of women battling against patriarchy; and the desperation of being on strike in a company town, in revolt in the countryside, or conscripted into the army. This updated edition is enhanced by a substantive new introduction by Samuel H. Yamashita. By allowing the underprivileged to speak for themselves, Hane and Yamashita present us with a unique people’s history of an often-hidden world.

"A powerful portrait of the oppressed and the forms of oppression that occur in India."—Theodore Riccardi, Jr., Columbia University

Integrating political events with cultural, economic, and intellectual movements, Modern Japan provides a balanced and authoritative survey of modern Japanese history. A summary of Japan's early history, emphasizing institutions and systems that influenced Japanese society, provides a well-rounded introduction to this essential volume, which focuses on the Tokugawa period to the present. The fifth edition of Modern Japan is updated throughout to include the latest information on Japan's international relations, including secret diplomatic correspondence recently disclosed on WikiLeaks. This edition brings Japanese history up to date in the post 9/11 era, detailing current issues such as: the impact of the Gulf Wars on Japanese international relations, the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear accident, the recent tumultuous change of political leadership, and Japan's current economic and global status. An updated chronological chart, list of prime ministers, and bibliography are also included.

This is a vivid account of the corrupt and improbable political machine that ran Japanese politics for twenty years, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, the period during which Japan became the world's second-largest economy. Reviews "Washington lobbyists, Moscow mafiosi, and Beijing party bosses stand back! . . . Here is one of the longest running big-time political sleaze serials of the past quarter-century. . . . This was a book waiting to be written, and not only has Schlesinger done it, but he has also produced a fine job of political reporting." --New York Times Book Review "In a rollicking style, Schlesinger . . . demolishes the popular misconception that politicians are boring. His is a tale of monstrous personalities. . . . This is the most entertaining short history of Japanese politics this reviewer has encountered." --The Economist "A story which is told vividly in this well researched and reliable account. . . . A superb analysis of Japan's politics and economic affairs." --Washington Post Book World "Shadow Shoguns is a lively and anecdote-rich account of the eerie parallels between Tokyo's now-battered political machine and New York's Tammany Hall. . . . Schlesinger masterfully demonstrates why Prime Minister Tanaka personified the collusive ties between Japanese politicians and Big Business." --Business Week "A fascinating and penetrating tale about the Tanaka machine that dominated Japan's politics for several decades and whose demise in the early 1990s has created a political vacuum that accounts for many of Japan's current problems." --Foreign Affairs

For centuries, various great powers have both exploited and benefited Taiwan, shaping its multiple and frequently contradictory identities. Offering a narrative of the island's political history, the author contends that it is best understood as a continuous struggle for security.

Until now the large body of socially focused Bengali literature has remained little known to Western readers. This collection includes some of the finest examples of Bengali short stories—stories that reflect the turmoil of a changing society traditionally characterized by rigid hierarchical structures of privilege and class differentiation. Written over a span of roughly ninety years from the early 1890s to the late 1970s, the twenty stories in this collection represent the work of five authors. Their characters, drawn from widely varying social groups, often find themselves caught up in tumultuous political and social upheaval.The reader encounters Rabindranath Thakur's extraordinarily spirited and bold heroines; Manik Bandyopadhyay's peasants, laborers, fisherfolk, and outcastes; and Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay's rural underclass of snake-charmers, corpse-handlers, stick-wielders, potters, witches, and Vaishnava minstrels. Mahasweta Devi gives voice to the semi-landless tribals and untouchables effectively denied the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution; Hasan Azizul Huq depicts the plight of the impoverished of Bangladesh.

Steve Shone’s Women of Liberty explores the many overlaps between ten radical, feminist, and anarchist thinkers: Tennie C. Claflin, Noe Itō, Louise Michel, Rose Pesotta, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mollie Steimer, Lois Waisbrooker, Mercy Otis Warren, and Victoria C. Woodhull. In an age of great and understandable dissatisfaction with governments around the world, Shone illuminates both the lost wisdom of the anarchists and the considerable contribution of women to intellectual thought, influences that are currently missing from many classes documenting the history of political theory.

With over 60 contributions, The Tokugawa World presents the latest scholarship on early modern Japan from an international team of specialists in a volume that is unmatched in its breadth and scope. In its early modern period, under the Tokugawa shoguns, Japan was a world apart. For over two centuries the shogun’s subjects were forbidden to travel abroad and few outsiders were admitted. Yet in this period, Japan evolved as a nascent capitalist society that could rapidly adjust to its incorporation into the world system after its forced "opening" in the 1850s. The Tokugawa World demonstrates how Japan’s early modern society took shape and evolved: a world of low and high cultures, comic books and Confucian academies, soba restaurants and imperial music recitals, rigid enforcement of social hierarchy yet also ongoing resistance to class oppression. A world of outcasts, puppeteers, herbal doctors, samurai officials, businesswomen, scientists, scholars, blind lutenists, peasant rebels, tea-masters, sumo wrestlers, and wage workers. Covering a variety of features of the Tokugawa world including the physical landscape, economy, art and literature, religion and thought, and education and science, this volume is essential reading for all students and scholars of early modern Japan.

Originally published in 1956, A River Called Titash is among the most highly acclaimed novels in Bengali literature. A unique combination of folk poetry and ethnography, Adwaita Mallabarman's tale of a Malo fishing village at the turn of the century captures the songs, speech, rituals, and rhythms of a once self-sufficient community and culture swept away by natural catastrophe, modernization, and political conflict. Both historical document and work of art, this lyrical novel provides an intimate view of a community of Hindu fishers and Muslim peasants, coexisting peacefully before the violent partition of Bengal between India and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Mallabarman's story documents a way of life that has all but disappeared. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993. Originally published in 1956, A River Called Titash is among the most highly acclaimed novels in Bengali literature. A unique combination of folk poetry and ethnography, Adwaita Mallabarman's tale of a Malo fishing village at the turn of the centur