Science for the Empire Scientific Nationalism in Modern Japan Hiromi Mizuno |
2009 288 pp. ISBN-10: 0804759618
ISBN-13: 9780804759618 Cloth $55.00 ISBN-10: 0804769842
ISBN-13: 9780804769846 E-book $55 20% off e-book after you add to Shopping Cart. Rental Options also available. More Information. | |
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"The amount that can be read between the lines alone of this clear snapshot of the origins of vertain aspects of modern Japan, which are often treated as more traditional, makes the book worth the read. The volume also fills a gap in the history of science caused by the discipline's traditionally Eurocentric focus, and is a critical contribution to the English-language history of both science and Japan."—CHOICE "A very important contribution to Japanese intellectual and social history. Mizuno's book will require historians and social scientists of Japan to consider further the importance of the natural sciences, nationalism, and discourses about them for the larger field of study."—James Bartholomew, The Ohio State University This fascinating study examines the discourse of science in Japan from the 1920s to the 1940s in relation to nationalism and imperialism. How did Japan, with Shinto creation mythology at the absolute core of its national identity, come to promote the advancement of science and technology? Using what logic did wartime Japanese embrace both the rationality that denied and the nationalism that promoted this mythology? Focusing on three groups of science promoters—technocrats, Marxists, and popular science proponents—this work demonstrates how each group made sense of apparent contradictions by articulating its politics through different definitions of science and visions of a scientific Japan. The contested, complex political endeavor of talking about and promoting science produced what the author calls "scientific nationalism," a powerful current of nationalism that has been overlooked by scholars of Japan, nationalism, and modernity. 
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