Publisher Description

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.

Author Biography

Hiromi Mizuno is Associate Professor of History at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgmentsxxx Note on Transliterationxxx Introduction 1 Part 1 Technocracy Chapter 1 Toward Technocracy 000 Chapter 2 Technocratic Vision for a Scientific Empire000 Part 2Marxism Chapter 3 Incomplete Modernity and the Problem of Science 000 Chapter 4 Mapping Marxism onto the Politics of the Scientific 000 Chapter 5 Constructing the Scientific Japanese Tradition 000 Part 3Popular Science Chapter 6 The Mobilization of Wonder 000 Conclusion000 Notes000 Bibliography000 Index000

Review

"[Mizuno's] work presents numerous opportunities to begin transnational inquiry, especially given the enormous soft power of the postwar Japanese state in northeast and southeast Asia ... If Science for the Empire concisely and incisively challenges an older portrait of Japan, it offers similar questions to scholars of the nation's regional neighbors and partners." - John DiMoia, Journal of Northeast Asia History "Scholars of modern Japan, and any scholars wanting to learn of the role and expectations of science and its relationship to the state, should carefully read this important work." - John E. Van Sant, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences "Mizuno's analysis also informs areas such as the economic and political roles of nuclear development, the direction of computer-related industries, and robotics... In all, it is a modest gem using fresh materials and approaches to get at important issues." - Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, Asian Anthropology "[T]his is an excellent study of Japanese science from the interwar through wartime years that will stand the test of time. Mizuno has provided valuable insight into the minds of technologists, scientists, philosophers and historians of science, and writers that reveals their motivations as they related to one another, the state, and society at large. This book is a welcome addition to the small but growing literature of the history of science in Japan." - David G. Wittner, East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine "[Mizuno] brings to light some of the overlooked linkages between prewar and postwar Japan and suggests a useful means of considering some of the other instances of boosterism apparent in global history ... [Science for the Empire] sheds additional light upon the contested nature of social change in interwar Japan and usefully supplements that growing body of work." - Bill Sewell, Canadian Journal of History

Long Description

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.

Review Quote

"This is an important book that shows us that there was a battle over 'science' even before the war and it continued in peacetime with groups such as Minka."

Details