Japan’s Holy War reveals how a radical religious ideology drove the Japanese to imperial expansion and global war. Bringing to light a wealth of new information; Walter A. Skya demonstrates that whatever other motives the Japanese had for waging war in Asia and the Pacific; for many the war was the fulfillment of a religious mandate. In the early twentieth century; a fervent nationalism developed within State ShintÅ. This ultranationalism gained widespread military and public support and led to rampant terrorism; between 1921 and 1936 three serving and two former prime ministers were assassinated. ShintÅ ultranationalist societies fomented a discourse calling for the abolition of parliamentary government and unlimited Japanese expansion.Skya documents a transformation in the ideology of State ShintÅ in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth. He shows that within the religion; support for the German-inspired theory of constitutional monarchy that had underpinned the Meiji Constitution gave way to a theory of absolute monarchy advocated by the constitutional scholar Hozumi Yatsuka in the late 1890s. That; in turn; was superseded by a totalitarian ideology centered on the emperor: an ideology advanced by the political theorists Uesugi Shinkichi and Kakehi Katsuhiko in the 1910s and 1920s. Examining the connections between various forms of ShintÅ nationalism and the state; Skya demonstrates that where the Meiji oligarchs had constructed a quasi-religious; quasi-secular state; Hozumi Yatsuka desired a traditional theocratic state. Uesugi Shinkichi and Kakehi Katsuhiko went further; encouraging radical; militant forms of extreme religious nationalism. Skya suggests that the creeping democracy and secularization of Japan’s political order in the early twentieth century were the principal causes of the terrorism of the 1930s; which ultimately led to a holy war against Western civilization.
#935813 in Books Stephen E Towne 2015-01-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.50 x 6.00l; .0 #File Name: 0821421034488 pagesSurveillance and Spies in the Civil War Exposing Confederate Conspiracies in America s Heartland Law Society Politics in the Midwest
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Tour de Force in New Research and Disclosures Regarding Civil War Conspiracies and SurveillanceBy David c. KeehnAn excellent coherent account of the formidable Northern secret society conspirators operating during the Civil War and the extensive Union surveillance system that prevented their menacing plots from coming to fruition. This book is a tour de force in primary source research that specifically identifies those involved in the various plots and the Union spies who tailed them. It shows that the threats posed by the Knights of the Golden Circle; Sons of Liberty and other secret societies were much more significant than some prior historians (such as Frank Klement) have recognized. The book not only reveals the surveillance by key Union military intelligence officers such as Colonels Carrington and Sanderson but also their relationship with Midwest military and political leaders such as General Heintzelman and Indiana Governor Morton. It's a major contribution to Civil War literature in the sparsely treated but significant arena of Northern non-battlefield actions. .1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. An Archivist's JewelBy Steve WilliamsAn exceptionally well researched presentation -- and a welcome addition to Jennifer Weber's "Copperheads" (Oxford 2006); both of which rely on primary source materials to dispell the revisionist accounts of Stampf; Klement; et al.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Superb. Towne mines often untapped military correspondence within the ...By Paul TaylorSuperb. Towne mines often untapped military correspondence within the National Archives and other primary sources to show that the subversive threats posed by the Knights of the Golden Circle; et al; were tangible and real. In a sense; this work is revisionist in that it wholly refutes the Klement-Stampp school; so dominant in the second half of the 20th-century; which held that the Knights and others were essentially Republican fabrications.
