| NOTA |
(★)(The Showa era, beginning in 1926 when Emperor Hirohito took the throne and ending on his death 1989, was the formative age of modern Japan. No doubt the most momentous, calamitous, successful, and glamorous period in Japan´s recent history, today Showa is a beacon for nostalgia that is memorialized yearly in a national holiday. But just what is the true essence of the Showa era, and what legacy did it leave the Japanese? This book is a clear-sighted exploration of Showa --a time of wondrous change, security, and growth, but also of wild spending and excess-- and the world that it made. From the highs of Showa extravagance to the lows of the lean years that followed, ´Showa Japan´ examines the impact of this era and its aftermath on every aspect of Japanese society. Featuring period photographs and a wealth of factual information and personal reflection, this book is a portrait of a Japan that once was --as well as a blueprint of one that might be, if lessons provided by a rocky past are well learned. During the past fifty years, the archipelago of Japan has been all but reborn : Dusty country roads are now major highways, and urban sprawl has obliterated hundreds, perhaps thousands, of once-rural or semi-rural communities. In the cities, low-rise neighborhoods have made way for spectacular office and residential towers. But this nation at the cutting edge of technology, design, and culture can also be surprisingly backward-looking : Japan today is haunted by its prosperous Showa era, which ended in 1989. Often known as Japan´s Golden Age, Showa was a time of amazing achievement and growth. It has come to stand for all that was good and decent and secure about life in Japan before the collapse of its bubble economy in the late 1980s. For all of its nostalgic appeal, Showa bore the seeds of future problems that Japan still struggles with today. From troubled relationships with its neighboring Asian nations to an ongoing search for personal and national identity, the social, cultural, and economic revolution that was Showa has left a pressing legacy of unfinished business. Almost two decades after the end of this influential era,´Showa Japan´ scrutinizes this unfinished business and how it might be addressed, ushering in a new Golden Age when Japan´s incredible energy and creativity will no longer be restrained by the hallowed myths of a vanished past. ◆Hans Brinckmann, born in The Hague in 1932, joined the Far Eastern management training program of a Dutch bank at age seventeen. The following year he was assigned to Singapore, and four months later to Japan, where he would stay for the next twenty-four years. After completing a career that took him to the Caribbean, Holland, and New York --interrupted by a two-year interlude in England devoted to writing-- he quit banking for good in 1988, and now lives in Tokyo and London. He is the author of The Magatama Doodle : One Man´s Affair with Japan, 1950-2004 --also available in Japanese-- and ´Noon Elusive´, a collection of short stories. He can be found online at www.habri.co.uk and in Japanese at www.habri.jp.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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