Culture and Identity: Japanese Intellectuals during the Interwar Years

This collection of essays represents the first attempt in this country to examine systematically the nature and development of modern Japanese self-consciousness as expressed through culture. The essays reveal eloquently the extent to which important aspects of Japanese intellectual life in the early twentieth century were inspired by European models of cultural criticism, ranging from Kant and Hegel to Nietzsche, Marx, Durkheim, and Bergson. Implicitly comparative, this collection raises the question whether “late” industrialization and related processes call forth cultural convergence (as between “East” and “West”) or whether a living culture transforms these processes and makes one nation’s experience significantly different from that of others.

Together with the editor, the contributors include Brett de Bary, Thomas W. Burkman, H. D. Harootunian, Germaine A. Hoston, Nozomu Kawamura, Stephen W. Kohl, William R. LaFleur, Hajimu Nakano, Donald Roden, Miriam Silverberg, Eugene Soviak, Jackie Stone, Shuji Takashina, and Makoto Ueda.

Originally published in 1990.

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