<i>Chrysanthemum</i>'s Strange Life: Ruth Benedict in Postwar Japan

Abstract

Abstract Revisiting Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, I follow in this article the postwar controversies in Japan over the book. Although enormously significant in the formation of postwar Japanese cultural identity and social scientific discourse, the book has gone through a strange life, subjected to diverse interpretations which reflect historical changes in Japan's self-perception. I propose that what is most strange about the reception of the book is the complete omission of the fact that the book ignores Japan's colonial and imperial history before 1945, thereby opening up the ground for postwar amnesia by the Japanese government of its prewar and wartime domination and atrocities in Asia. I examine the role that this book plays, albeit indirectly, as an historically produced text in helping to shape today's Japanese obliviousness towards its colonial past.