Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal

An absorbing account of the way American New Deal tenets melded with Japanesetradition to form the basis of Japan's modern industrial might.

The late Theodore Cohen was Gen. Douglas MacArthur's labor-relations chief during the postwar occupation of Japan, when American authorities were under orders to disarm, demilitarize and democratize that conquered nation. Cohen, with Passin, professor of East Asian studies at Columbia, describes how this daunting three-part program was carried out. Although he has high praise for MacArthur as civil governor, Cohen makes it clear that the general was not the American Caesar he seemed to be during that period of his career: he was implementing policy already established in Washington during the war. The book reveals how that policy was hammered out and the means by which the resulting directive, JCS 1380/15, was translated into action. MacArthur and staff had to deal with the threat of nation-wide famine, economic collapse, general strikes and many other crises while imposing sweeping radical reforms that in the end set the stage for Japan's emergence as the economic giant it is today.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.