In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Technology and Culture 47.4 (2006) 833-834


Reviewed by
William M. McBride
Making Waves: Politics, Propaganda, and the Emergence of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868–1922. By J. Charles Schencking. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005. Pp. x+283. $57.95.

J. Charles Schencking, senior lecturer in history at the University of Melbourne, describes the Imperial Japanese Navy as "a symbolic representation of the rise of modern Japan in the Meiji Period (1868–1912)" (p. 9). Within a generation, Meiji Japan built a modern navy that prevailed against China in 1895. A decade later, an even more modern Japanese navy defeated the Russian fleet at Tsushima, an event Theodore Roosevelt considered the "greatest phenomenon the world has ever seen." Japan's pursuit of naval power continued into the Taisho Period (1912–1926), and Japan ranked third in naval power, after Britain and the United States, when the Washington Naval Conference began in 1921. The price of this power was 32 percent of Japan's annual budget. The leaders of the Japanese navy, long characterized by historians as apolitical, accomplished this, Schencking argues, by "lobbying oligarchs, coercing cabinet ministers, forging alliances with political parties, occupying overseas territories, conducting well-orchestrated naval pageants, and launching spirited propaganda campaigns" (dust jacket).

In eight well-argued and well-written chapters, Schencking provides a new history of the Japanese navy that "privileges the politics, bureaucracy, [End Page 833] and economy behind naval development," part of a "'new theoretical school' of naval history" that articulates "how modern navies evolved into remarkably complex, politically active, and significant organs of state out of simple economic and political necessity" (p. 5). The author challenges the prevailing historiography of an apolitical Japanese navy, typified by noted Japanese historian Sadao Asada's "tradition of the 'silent navy' [with its] non-involvement in politics" that was the basis of "its passive attitude toward state affairs in general" (p. 6). Historians have focused on the political adventures of the Japanese army and created a perception, reinforced by the Tokyo war-crimes trials, that pre–World War II Japanese political parties—synonymous with liberal, democratic government—were overthrown by the more active army and the "retrograde" or "oppressive force" of the navy in a display of Showa militarism (p. 7). Drawing on extensive sources, Schencking argues effectively that Japanese political parties played a critical role in the emergence of the military services and "particularly the navy, as a strong, well-funded, politically active elite" (p. 7).

Making Waves is an important book for historians of Japan, for naval and military historians, and for those interested in the relationship between politicians and the military in the pursuit of modern state power. Although it is less relevant to historians of technology, it does provide a useful look into the social (political) construction of a technologically based institution, the Imperial Japanese Navy, whose influence and effect extended worldwide.

Dr. McBride is professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the author of Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865–1945 (2000).

Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer.
...

pdf

Share