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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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