Ebook: Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the Japanese People

Grassroots Fascism profiles the Asia-Pacific War (1937–1945) through the lens of ordinary Japanese life. Moving deftly from the struggles of the home front to the occupied territories to the ravages of the front line, the book offers rare insights into popular experiences from the war's troubled beginnings through Japan's disastrous defeat in 1945 and the new era it heralded. Yoshimi Yoshiaki draws upon diaries, letters, memoirs, and government documents to illuminate the ambivalent position of ordinary Japanese as both wartime victims and active participants. He also provides penetrating accounts of the war experiences of Japan's minorities and imperial subjects, including Koreans and Taiwanese. He challenges the idea that the Japanese people passively accepted an imperial ideology imposed upon them by the political elite. Viewed from the bottom up, wartime Japan unfolds as a complex and modern mass society, with a corresponding variety of popular roles and agendas.

Offers rare insights into popular experiences from the war’s troubled beginnings through Japan’s disastrous defeat in 1945 and the new beginning it heralded