The Renaissance of Takefu tells the story of a citizen group that made good in an enduring and fundamental way through the example and results of their participation in local civic life. The book draws attention to the complicated conditions under which civic participation may succeed. The story foregrounds individuals and organisations in the regional Japanese town of Takefu (2001 population 73,000), but these events are also placed in the context of the surrounding Japan Sea region of west Japan and the wider currents of the Japanese nation-state at the time. The author relies on the...

This text analyses the structural dynamics of the Sino-American-Japanese triangular relationship by exploring how the 1971 Nixon-Kissinger announcement to pursue rapprochement with the People's Republic of China (PRC), in the context of the overall detente strategy, fundamentally altered the US-Japanese relationship. It argues that the systematic structure of international relations in East Asia during the detente period was similar in significant ways to today's post-Cold War period. Highlighting the importance of China to US policy options towards East Asia enables us to provide a more...

This dissertation seeks to determine whether the cycle of films produced after the fall of the 'Gang of Four' in the People's Republic of China in 1976, and representing events during the Cultural Revolution decade of 1966-1976, constitutes a major break with the classical mainland Chinese cinema that had been dominant in that country after 1949. It is widely acknowledged in scholarship about China that Chinese society and culture now is qualitatively different from the heyday of socialism, both in terms of a decline in central control and loss of faith in the socialist vision. This...

This study examines one aspect of American women's professionalization and the implications of the cross-cultural dialogue between American women missionaries and Japanese students and supporters at Kobe College between 1873 and 1909.