Baseball in Occupied Japan: US Postwar Cultural Policy (Japanese Society Series) - Softcover

Tanikawa, Takeshi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1925608018 ISBN 13: 9781925608014

Publisher: Trans Pacific Press, 2022

Synopsis

How was baseball used to promote U.S. values in occupied Japan? The first post–war Japanese professional baseball game was held on November 23, 1945, just 100 days after the end of World War II. During the occupation of Japan, GHQ sought to suppress and regulate budo (Japanese martial arts) as a relic of Japanese pre-war militarism but encouraged the playing and watching of baseball games as an effective teamwork– and sportsmanship–building tool. Baseball in Occupied Japan examines the revival of Japanese baseball in the occupation era, focusing on how the U.S. government carried out its cultural diplomacy policy within the arena of sports. The chapters hone in on various means by which the U.S. via GHQ controlled and fostered sports in Japan as a form of cultural diplomacy, including the propagation of the image of Jackie Robinson as an example of American unification, the San Francisco Seals' tour of Japan, the promotion of sports through CIE films, and the prohibition of martial arts such as kendo.

About this title

About the Author

Takeshi Tanikawa is Visiting Professor of Film History in the Graduate School of Political Science, Waseda University, and has been a cinema journalist and film critic for nearly three decades.

Edition details

• Publisher: Trans Pacific Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1925608018
• ISBN 13: 9781925608014
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248