A Time of Crisis: Japan, the Great Depression, and Rural Revitalization

by Kerry Smith

Overview

This study of Japan's transformation by the economic crises of the 1930s focuses on efforts to overcome the effects of the Great Depression in rural areas, particularly the activities of local activists and policymakers in Tokyo. The author argues that these efforts changed the nation's thinking about the countryside, as well as Japan's conception of its economic and cultural relationship to the nation, in ways that have important implications for our understanding of both the war years and the postwar reconstruction. The reactions of inhabitants of rural areas to the depression shed new light on how average Japanese responded to the problems of modernization and how they re-created the countryside.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674012776
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2003
Series:	Harvard East Asian Monographs , #191
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Kerry Smith is Associate Professor of History at Brown University.

Table of Contents

	Japan in a Time of Crisis	1
	Locations	19
	The Rural Depression	42
	Rescuing the Countryside	84
	Crafting Rural Relief	135
	Revitalization	172
	Revitalization in a Famine Year: Sekishiba 1934-1935	224
	The Village Economy, 1935-1939	269
	Re-Constructing Community: Sekishiba 1935-1937	288
	Sekishiba in Wartime	325
	The Elusive Revitalized Village	353

Editorial Reviews

Smith has produced a groundbreaking study of the impact of the Great Depression on Japan in the 1930s. The early 1930s, when Japan was wracked by internal and external problems, was called a 'time of crisis' by contemporary Japanese...This unique and insightful look at a crucial time in modern Japanese history is highly recommended.

Choice - M. D. Ericson

Smith has produced a groundbreaking study of the impact of the Great Depression on Japan in the 1930s. The early 1930s, when Japan was wracked by internal and external problems, was called a 'time of crisis' by contemporary Japanese...This unique and insightful look at a crucial time in modern Japanese history is highly recommended.
— M. D. Ericson

Choice