Japan and Germany under the U.S. Occupation explores the reconstruction of education in both countries after World War II. In Japan large-scale reforms were undertaken swiftly after the nation's surrender, whereas in the U.S. Zone of Germany most of the traditional aspects of education were maintained. Masako Shibata argues that differences in the role of the university and in the pattern of elite formation, traceable back to the beginnings of Meiji Japan and the Kaiserreich created the conditions for the diverging approaches of the Japanese and German leaders to the adoption of foreign...

Focusing on the post war reconstruction of the education systems in Japan and Germany under U.S. military occupation after World War II, this book offers a comparative historical investigation of education reform policies in these two war ravaged and ideologically compromised countries. While in Japan large-scale reforms were undertaken swiftly after the end of the war, the U.S. zone in Germany maintained most of the traditional aspects of the German education system. Why did Japan so readily accept ideas and values developed in the allied countries while Germany resisted? Masako Shibata...