Engineering War and Peace in Modern Japan, 1868–1964

Takashi Nishiyama

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781421412672
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Japanese History
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The role of engineering communities in taking Japan from a defeated war machine into a peacetime technology leader.

Naval, aeronautic, and mechanical engineers played a powerful part in the military buildup of Japan in the early and mid-twentieth century. They belonged to a militaristic regime and embraced the importance of their role in it. Takashi Nishiyama examines the impact of war and peace on technological transformation during the twentieth century. He is the first to study the paradoxical and transformative power of Japan's defeat in World War II through the lens of engineering.

Nishiyama asks: How did authorities select and prepare young men to be engineers? How did Japan develop curricula adequate to the task (and from whom did the country borrow)? Under what conditions? What did the engineers think of the planes they built to support Kamikaze suicide missions? But his study ultimately concerns the remarkable transition these trained engineers made after total defeat in 1945. How could the engineers of war machines so quickly turn to peaceful construction projects such as designing the equipment necessary to manufacture consumer products? Most important, they developed new high-speed rail services, including the Shinkansen Bullet Train. What does this change tell us not only about Japan at war and then in peacetime but also about the malleability of engineering cultures?

Nishiyama aims to counterbalance prevalent Eurocentric/Americentric views in the history of technology. Engineering War and Peace in Modern Japan, 1868–1964 sets the historical experience of one country's technological transformation in a larger international framework by studying sources in six different languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. The result is a fascinating read for those interested in technology, East Asia, and international studies. Nishiyama's work offers lessons to policymakers interested in how a country can recover successfully after defeat.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration
• Introduction Technology and Culture, War and Peace
• 1 Designing Engineering Education for War, 1868–1942
• 2 Navy Engineers and the Air War, 1919–1942
• 3 Engineers for the Kamikaze Air War, 1943–1945
• 4 Integrating Wartime Experience in Postwar Japan, 1945–1952
• 5 Former Military Engineers in the Postwar Japanese National Railways, 1945–1955
• 6 Opposition Movements of Former Military Engineers in the Postwar Railway Industry, 1945–1957
• 7 Former Military Engineers and the Development of the Shinkansen, 1957–1964
• Conclusion Legacy of War and Defeat
• A Note on the Appendix and Sources
• Appendix: List of Informants
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index