In this Book
- Hard Times in the Hometown: A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
summary
Hard Times in the Hometown tells the story of Kaminoseki, a small town on Japan’s Inland Sea. Once one of the most prosperous ports in the country, Kaminoseki fell into profound economic decline following Japan’s reengagement with the West in the late nineteenth century. Using a recently discovered archive and oral histories collected during his years of research in Kaminoseki, Martin Dusinberre reconstructs the lives of households and townspeople as they tried to make sense of their changing place in the world. In challenging the familiar story of modern Japanese growth, Dusinberre provides important new insights into how ordinary people shaped the development of the modern state.
Chapters describe the role of local revolutionaries in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ways townspeople grasped opportunities to work overseas in the late nineteenth century, and the impact this pan-Pacific diaspora community had on Kaminoseki during the prewar decades. These histories amplify Dusinberre’s analysis of postwar rural decline—a phenomenon found not only in Japan but throughout the industrialized Western world. His account comes to a climax when, in the 1980s, the town’s councillors request the construction of a nuclear power station, unleashing a storm of protests from within the community. This ongoing nuclear dispute has particular resonance in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima crisis.
Hard Times in the Hometown gives voice to personal histories otherwise lost in abandoned archives. By bringing to life the everyday landscape of Kaminoseki, this work offers readers a compelling story through which to better understand not only nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan but also modern transformations more generally.
15 illus., 2 maps
Chapters describe the role of local revolutionaries in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ways townspeople grasped opportunities to work overseas in the late nineteenth century, and the impact this pan-Pacific diaspora community had on Kaminoseki during the prewar decades. These histories amplify Dusinberre’s analysis of postwar rural decline—a phenomenon found not only in Japan but throughout the industrialized Western world. His account comes to a climax when, in the 1980s, the town’s councillors request the construction of a nuclear power station, unleashing a storm of protests from within the community. This ongoing nuclear dispute has particular resonance in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima crisis.
Hard Times in the Hometown gives voice to personal histories otherwise lost in abandoned archives. By bringing to life the everyday landscape of Kaminoseki, this work offers readers a compelling story through which to better understand not only nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan but also modern transformations more generally.
15 illus., 2 maps
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- List of Figures and Tables
- pp. ix-x
- Notes on Terms
- p. xi
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xiii-xiv
- 2. Edo Period Riches
- pp. 17-36
- Part III: Living with a Changing World
- pp. 81-116
- Part IV: Living with the Bright Life
- pp. 117-167
- 8. Bridging the Postwar Divide
- pp. 119-135
- 9. Furusato Boom, Kaminoseki Bust
- pp. 136-148
- 10. Nuclear Decision
- pp. 149-167
- Part V: Dying for Survival
- pp. 169-201
- 11. Atomic Power, Community Fission
- pp. 171-188
- 12. The Silk Road of the Sea: An Ending
- pp. 189-201
- Abbreviations
- p. 203
- Bibliography
- pp. 229-239
Additional Information
ISBN
9780824861124
Related ISBN(s)
9780824835248
MARC Record
OCLC
806250128
Launched on MUSE
2012-06-26
Language
English
Open Access
No