Concrete Results?: The TVA and the Appeal of Large Dams in Occupation-Era Japan

Progressive Japanese economic thinkers and U.S. policymakers promoted the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as a model for post–World War II water use. In the late 1940s, when the escalating cold war called the future of international trade into question, these thinkers embraced the TVA model as a way to rebuild the country by converting Japan’s hydrosphere into a reliable domestic source of energy. They steadfastly endorsed state-guided hydrologic projects as a means of fostering social democratization, raising living standards, providing employment opportunities, and instilling a “rational” way of daily life in rural Japan.