It is common to describe Japanese society prior to World War II as militaristic. A conventional historical narrative goes as follows: in order to compete with the Western powers, the new government founded through the Meiji Restoration built a modern army, introduced universal conscription, and demanded its subjects’ total devotion to the nation-state. Militarism reached its peak in the total-war era, from the late 1930s, but was rooted by the U.S. occupation that followed defeat in war. Then, Japan started on the path to democracy.
In his Provincial Life and the Military, Stewart Lone, professor of Asian social history at the Australia Defense Force Academy campus of the University of New South Wales, challenges this historical narrative. Relying on the sociologist Michael Mann, he defines militarism as “a set of attitudes and social practices which regards war and the preparation for war as a normal and desirable social activity” (p. 3), and he argues that it is misleading to regard prewar Japanese society simply as militaristic. Throughout the book, he constantly reminds us that people in prewar Japan were never docile, blind supporters of the military; in fact, many of them openly contested the status of this institution in society.
Lone supports this argument by examining the relations between the army and local communities, particularly those in Gifu. As a rationale for choosing Gifu as the site of this intellectual excavation, he points out that this prefecture demonstrates a great geographic diversity—stretching from the plain of Minō to the mountains of Hida—and suggests that it therefore represents Japan. Lone surveys a wide array of primary sources, including local newspapers, together with histories compiled by the prefectural, municipal, town, and village governments; histories of schools, railways, business associations, and civic groups; and unpublished documents held by the Gifu Prefecture Historical Archives.
The book consists of an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. Chapter 1 details the beginning of the interaction between the military and civil society in the Meiji era. Chapter 2 focuses on the Sino-Japanese War period, and argues that popular fever for the war was rather short-lived. In chapter 3, Lone shifts his attention to the Russo-Japanese War period, explaining that the material and human costs of the war made local people doubt its legitimacy and that, in fact, they expressed their skepticism and frustration frankly. Chapter 4 is about Gifu's campaign to invite a military base to the prefecture after the Russo-Japanese War. Local residents' excitement over the presence of a standing army was based on economic interests, he argues, not patriotism. Chapter 5 looks at the public perceptions of conscripts, whom, he writes, civilians viewed not always as ideal strong men but often as undisciplined and physically fragile. Chapter 6 investigates the growing estrangement between the military and society after the Russo-Japanese War, until World War I. Finally, chapter 7 examines Gifu residents' efforts to retain the army presence for economic reasons at the height of disarmament during the Taishō Democracy period.
This is the first book in the English language to investigate society–military relations in prewar Japan in depth. Several studies on modern Japan have already revealed that the military had a considerable influence on people's everyday life (e.g., shaping social and economic policies). But these have tended to treat the military together with other state organizations, and have not exposed it to sufficient scholarly attention. Lone's study, on the other hand, confirms the importance of placing the military at the center of a study when we try to understand people's rapidly changing everyday lives from the Meiji era onward. He explores not only what the military did but also how local communities responded, and he gives us a comprehensive picture of civil–military relations in prewar Japan.
There are two points that, I think, call for further clarification. The first concerns the period that this book covers. Lone ends his story in the 1920s. He does not deal with the total-war period from the Manchurian Incident in 1931 to the end of the Asia-Pacific War in 1945 because, according to him, this period, known as the “dark valley,” is “clearly anomalous” in Japanese history (p. 7). When students of Japanese history claim that prewar Japan was militaristic, however, they refer mainly to this total-war period. If he could have extended his argument to this period as well, it would have even greater significance.
The other point concerns the author's conception of militarism. I understand that Lone intends to refute the idea of prewar Japan as militaristic in order to challenge the conventional historical narrative. On the other hand, his data clearly demonstrate that, though they might not have internalized fervent patriotism, Gifu residents' lives were intricately linked to the military in socioeconomic terms. I believe it is possible to argue that this civil–military economic interdependence is also one aspect of militarism in that civil society depended heavily on the military for the maintenance of its welfare, or at least this interdependence prepared a ground for the growth of militarism from the 1930s. Then, it could be argued that prewar Japan was not unexceptional not because it was not militaristic but because, like most modern states, it was.
These two points, however, do not tarnish the value of this book, which should be read by not only students of Japanese studies but also those interested in civil–military relations in modern states generally.
