Rioters and Citizens: Mass Protest in Imperial Japan

On 22 July 1918 a group of Japanese fishermen's wives met in a small village on the coast to discuss what they could do to lower the spiraling cost of rice. This peaceful meeting gave rise to the 1918 race riots, a series of mass demonstrations and armed clashes that spread rapidly throughout the country on a scale unprecedented in modern Japanese history.

In this penetrating study, Michael Lewis questions standard historical interpretations of the riots. What political significance did the...