The Pursuit of Power in Modern Japan, 1825-1995 (review)

In the preface to this survey, Tsuzuki writes that the history of modern Japan is that of a fundamentally ethnocentric, xenophobic nation that sought to assert its power in the international arena by mastering the techniques of the leading players. He follows this preface with a 469-page narrative filled with facts culled mainly from secondary sources in English and Japanese. The author provides limited analysis or theoretical discussion, and resorts to such statements as "Intellectual sanity is not the strongest characteristic of the Japanese" to explain crucial developments in domestic politics or international relations (459).

Tsuzuki, who apparently has no training as a historian of Japan, is far behind the times in his understanding of the field; his bibliographical essay focuses largely on the modernization literature of the 1960s and 1970s. Although he cites works published within the last two decades, he appears unaware of their contributions to debates on such central issues as the nature of the Japanese state, the validity of the concept of the "emperor system," the nature of fascism in Japan, and the impact of Japanese imperialism in Asia. The book also raises no questions of interest from an interdisciplinary perspective.