Japan Update


Book Description




Britain and Japan


Book Description

A Familiar Compound Ghost explores the relationship between allusion and the uncanny in literature. An unexpected echo or quotation in a new text can be compared to the sudden appearance of a ghost or mysterious double, the reanimation of a corpse, or the discovery of an ancient ruin hidden in a modern city. In this scholarly and suggestive study, Brown identifies moments where this affinity between allusion and the uncanny is used by writers to generate a particular textual charge, where uncanny elements are used to flag patterns of allusion and to point to the haunting presence of an earlier work. A Familiar Compound Ghost traces the subtle patterns of connection between texts centuries, even millennia apart, from Greek tragedy and Latin epic, through the plays of Shakespeare and the Victorian novel, to contemporary film, fiction and poetry. Each chapter takes a different uncanny motif as its focus: doubles, ruins, reanimation, ghosts and journeys to the underworld.










Japan's Remilitarisation


Book Description

Is Japan on a path towards assuming a greater military role internationally, or has the recent military normalisation ground to a halt since the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi? In this book, Christopher W. Hughes assesses developments in defence expenditure, civilmilitary relations, domestic and international militaryindustrial complexes, Japans procurement of regional and global power-projection capabilities, the expansion of USJapan cooperation, and attitudes towards nuclear weapons, constitutional revision and the use of military force. In all of these areas, dynamic and long-term changes outweigh Japans short-term political logjam over security policy. Hughes argues that many post-war constraints on Japans military role are still eroding, and that Tokyo is moving towards a more assertive military role and strengthened USJapan cooperation. Japans remilitarisation will boost its international security role and the dominance of the USJapan alliance in regional and global security affairs, but will need to be carefully managed if it is not to become a source of destabilising tensions.




The Japan Handbook


Book Description

The Regional Handbooks of Economic Development series provides accessible overviews of countries within their larger domestic and international contexts, focusing on the relations among regions as they meet the challenges of the twenty first century. The series allows the non-specialist student to explore a wide range of complex factors-social and political as well as economic-that affect the growth of developing regions in Asia, Europe, and South America. Each Handbook provides an overview chapter discussing the region's economic conditions within an historical and political context, as well as 20 or more chapter-length essays written by recognized experts, which analyze the key issues affecting a region's economy: its population, natural resources, foreign trade, labor problems, and economic inequalities, and other vital factors. In addition, the volumes offer useful support materials, including a series of appendices that include a detailed chronology of events in the region, a glossary of terms, biographical entries on key personalities, an annotated bibliography of further reading, and a comprehensive analytical index.




Japan's Interventionist State


Book Description

Japan's Interventionist State gives a detailed examination of Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and its role in promoting, protecting and preserving the regime of agricultural support and protection. This account is integral to the author's extended and multidimensional explanation for why Japan continues to provide high levels of assistance to its farmers and why it continues to block market access concessions in the WTO and other agricultural trade talks.







Japan's Bubble, Deflation, and Long-term Stagnation


Book Description

New perspectives on Japan's "lost decade" viewed in the context of recent financial turmoil.