Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. xii, 221 pp. (B&W illus.) C$90.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-107-03770-0.
Japan is far from the first country that comes to mind in connection with the First World War. Although it entered the global conflict on the side of the Allies, with most of the war taking place on the other side of the globe, Japan’s role was limited to the swift occupation of German territories in China and the Pacific, limited naval operations in Europe, and participation as one of the powers at the Versailles Peace Conference. In this book, Frederick Dickinson sets out to reveal how important that war and the new world order it brought about were for the development of modern Japan. At the same time, he also seeks to challenge the all-too-common view, among postwar Japanese and Japan-specialists alike, that there was something fundamentally flawed in Japan’s interwar “Taishō democracy” that led inexorably to the militarism and authoritarianism of the 1930s and early 1940s. Dickinson claims that by interpreting the 1920s in light of the 1930s, previous scholars of modern Japan have overemphasized the crises and reactionary tendencies of interwar diplomacy, politics and culture, thus overlooking or devaluing the degree with which the Japanese understood the post-Versailles world order as an opportunity to advance Japan’s international stature, while also using the internationalist tide of the postwar years to advance progressive changes at home.
Dickinson urges us to consider the Japanese reaction to the First World War in a light similar to that of the Meiji Restoration. Just as scholars have moved away from an interpretation of the early Meiji years that emphasizes Japanese fears of the threats posed by Western imperialism toward one that focuses on the active pursuit of modernity, wealth and power in the state-building process, he contends that we could more accurately view developments of the interwar years not as a series of compromises forced upon Japan (or, domestically, upon a reactionary government by its citizenry), but rather as the active embrace of opportunities to assume a role in global politics more commensurate with its arduously acquired power. There is one important difference between the Meiji years and the 1920s, however: whereas the Meiji state-builders’ quest for modernity was in many ways a game of “catch-up ball” with the Western powers, by 1918 Japan’s leaders and people understood that Japan had achieved great power status. Japan’s willingness—indeed eagerness, according to Dickinson—to embrace the kind of multilateralism embodied in the League of Nations, the Washington Naval Conference, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact (to name just a few examples that Dickinson explores), far from being little more than humiliating compromises or superficial gestures doomed to failure, revealed an understanding of the new order that Versailles had brought about and the belief that Japan could play a major, even a leading role, in sustaining it. Dickinson also views the effort made across the 1920s by successive party cabinets to downsize the military as part of an international trend in reaction to the carnage of the war. Here too, Dickinson demonstrates that Japan’s leaders recognized that to lead meant to lead by example; the militarism exemplified by Germany had failed, and the leading states in a new, civilized world order needed to chart out a better course.
On the domestic scene as well, Dickinson notes the positive political and cultural developments that came about in response to the First World War and the failure of the German-style authoritarianism that was, he claims, one of the greatest lessons that Japanese observers took away from the Allied victory. Dickinson downplays the importance of some of the benchmarks of interwar history familiar to students of the period, such as the post-1918 economic downturn as European goods returned to the international market, the Rice Riots, the Great Kantō Earthquake, and the Peace Preservation Law and the subsequent roundups of communists and socialists. While these were far from unimportant, he cites the writings of prominent intellectuals and political leaders of the time to show that they saw these as much less dire for Japan than historians have since 1945. Instead, Dickinson urges us to look at the trends of the period: the democratization that began with Hara Takashi’s expansion of the electorate and took off with the achievement of universal male suffrage under the progressive policies of Katō Takaaki’s Minseitō; the downsizing of the military, also carried out by the Minseitō; a reevaluation of Japan’s imperialist program and approach to ruling its colonies; and the rise of a “culture of peace” in Japan that reigned until the travails of the early 1930s.
Throughout his analysis, Dickinson offers revealing evidence of how the leaders and knowledgeable observers of this “New Japan” understood their nation’s role in the new world order and the opportunities it promised to enhance Japan’s international influence. I was somewhat less convinced in regard to his claims about domestic developments, particularly in regard to disarmament and the culture of peace. The fact that the electorate seemed to support the downsizing of the military, after all, does not necessarily indicate a broad sentiment of anti-militarism or pacifism, as Dickinson suggests; people can accept the benefits of military power while at the same time being unwilling to pay higher taxes for them, after all. Readers may also come away wondering how the commitments to internationalism and peace that Dickinson claims were so deeply held in interwar Japan collapsed so rapidly after 1931. Dickinson promises to answer that question in a forthcoming study, but given the challenge he mounts to the standard historiography of the interwar period, a few hints in that direction would have given this book a better sense of conclusion.
Be that as it may, Dickinson provides us with a thought-provoking reminder not to read the past in light of what we know came next. This book, in combination with his next, will become important texts for students and specialists of interwar diplomacy, politics and culture in Japan.
Jeffrey P. Bayliss
Trinity College, Hartford, USA
pp. 319-321