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[NOTE: Originally posted on H-US-Japan. You can read the table of
contents and Introduction of the book on the web.
http://www.sugita.org/JMD.html (English)
http://www.sugita.org/DodgeIntro.html (Japanese: synopsis only).
RBE]
8 November 1999
Book Review
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (November, 1999)
Yoneyuki Sugita and Marie Thorsten. _Beyond the Line: Joseph
Dodge and the Geometry of Power in US-Japan Relations,
1949-1952_ Okayama: University Education Press, 1999. 108 pp.
1800 yen (paper), ISBN 4-88730-352-1.
Reviewed for H-US-Japan by William A. Callahan
<[log in to unmask]>, The University of Durham
It would be an understatement to say that US-Japan relations in the
twentiethth century, and our understanding of them, have been
characterized by hype. This international relationship, which can be
accurately described as 'the most powerful economic relationship in the
latter half of the twentieth century,' also has had important
repercussions on the internal politics of each state. The intensely
racialized struggle of World War II included warfare against US
citizens of Japanese ancestry. Japan's fantastic economic success in the
1970s and 80s gave rise in America to both Yellow Peril discourse and
new models of capitalist utopia and industrial relations. And now in the
1990s, the burst of the Japanese bubble (and the hegemony of the US
economy) is part of a reassessment of Asian values.
Such stereotypes, which assume the coherence and uniqueness of
'Japan' and 'America,' are commonly heard in the halls of power and
the media - as well as in academic texts. Sugita and Thorsten's new
book _Beyond the Line: Joseph Dodge and the Geometry of Power in
US-Japan Relations, 1949-52_ provides an important corrective to
such views.
Through painstaking archival research of the documents and
correspondence of key American and Japanese officials, contextualized
with other academic analyses, they argue that Joseph Dodge, then
President of the Detroit Bank, was one of the keys to Japanese
economic success. They show how Dodge's rational, free-market
policies were not just for 'Japan' but were an important part of
America's Cold War calculations for hegemony over Asia. In other
words, rather than Japan switching from World War II to a trade war
against the US - as is often said - Sugita and Thorsten demonstrate
how the regionalization of the Japanese economy was a key to
America's Cold War policy. Their analysis shows how the Dodge Line,
as an economic plan, was conceptually distinct from near-mythical
power of SCAP's leader Douglas MacArthur, and how such an appeal
to rationalism rather than nationalism was key to American Cold War
policy in its early stages: Japan's balanced budget was intimately related
to the global balance of power in the eyes of American officials.
The book thus makes us question narratives of an East Asian economic
miracle which rely on a unique Japanese economic-culture: the plans
came from a Detriot banker acting for Washington, and who in turn
encouraged key players such as Yoshida Shigeru, Ikeda Hayato,
Ichimada Naoto and a new cadre of professional bankers. The book
also makes us question common views that Japan is achieving through
economic imperialism what it failed to do in World War II. The
Japanese economy gained momentum in East and Southeast Asia after
World War II, largely because it figured into the American Cold War
plan to contain communism, and later because it benefited from both
the Korean and Vietnam wars. This has been forgotten, Sugita and
Thorsten argue, because the Japanese economy was much more
successful than the American Cold Warriors planned. Japan itself thus
became a threat. The authors thus are able to examine the policies
associated with Dodge in the broader context of global and regional
politics.
One weakness is that the book needs to put Dodge's key Japanese
comrades Yoshida Shigeru, Ikeda Hayato, Ichimada Naoto mentioned
in Chapter Three in better context so the reader can appreciate just how
important to Japan's economic success they were.
_Beyond the Line_ is tightly organized and well-argued with lively and
entertaining prose. Due to its attention to detail and primary sources it
is useful as a research tool. Because of its accessibility (concise, clear
prose), and expanatory notes for Japanese readers, it is useful for
teaching purposes.
Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the
author and the list. For other permission, please contact H-Net@h-
net.msu.edu.
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