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Doing Fieldwork in Japan, Theodore C. Bestor, Patricia G. Steinhoff, and Victoria Lyon Bestor (co-editors), University of Hawai'i Press, 2003 (ISBN 978-0-8248-2734-2)

Neighborhood Tokyo, Theodore C. Bestor, Stanford University Press 1989 and Kodansha International 1990 (ISBN 978-0-8047-1797-7)

Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World, Theodore C. Bestor, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004 (ISBN 978-0-520-22024-9)


Ben-Ari, Eyal (1991), Changing Japanese Suburbia: a study of two present day localities, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-7103-0381-3[19][20]

Ben-Ari, Eyal (1997), Japanese Childcare: An Interpretive Study of Culture and Organization, London and New York: Kegan Paul International, ISBN 978-0-7007-0448-4; a study of a Kyoto preschool, intended as a theoretical study of childcare institutions, rather than an ethnographic work. It examines written and verbal communications between staff members in the high-turnover environment to determine their role in achieving the goals of the school.[21]

Finding a Place in Metropolitan Japan - William Kelly





- Globalism

The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations Hardcover – September 1, 1997

by Walter Lafeber

Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation 1st Edition

by Michael Schaller (Author)

The relationship between the United States and Japan is torn by contrary impulses. We face each other across the Pacific as friends and allies, as the two most powerful economies in the world--and as suspicious rivals. Americans admire the industry of the Japanese, but we resent the huge trade deficit that has developed between us, due to what we consider to be unfair trade practices and "unlevel playing fields." Now, in Altered States, historian Michael Schaller strips away the stereotypes and misinformation clouding American perceptions of Japan, providing the historical background that helps us make sense of this important relationship.

Here is an eye-opening history of U.S.-Japan relations from the end of World War II to the present, revealing its rich depths and startling complexities. Perhaps Schaller's most startling revelation is that modern Japan is what we made it--that most of what we criticize in Japan's behavior today stems directly from U.S. policy in the 1950s. Indeed, as the book shows, for seven years after the end of the war, our occupational forces exerted enormous influence over the shape and direction of Japan's economic future. Stunned by the Communist victory in China and the outbreak of war in Korea, and fearful that Japan might form ties with Mao's China, the U.S. encouraged the rapid development of the Japanese economy, protecting the huge industrial conglomerates and creating new bureaucracies to direct growth. Thus Japan's government-guided, export-driven economy was nurtured by our own policy. Moreover, the United States fretted about Japan's economic weakness--that they would become dependent on us--and sought to expand Tokyo's access to markets in the very areas it had just tried to conquer, the old Co Prosperity Sphere. Schaller documents how, as the Cold War deepened throughout the 1950s, Washington showered money on what it saw as the keystone of the eastern shore of Asia, working assiduously to expand the Japanese economy and, in fact, worrying intensely over the American trade surplus. Fear of Japanese instability ran so deep that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson approved secret financial help to Japanese conservative politicians, some of whom had been accused of war crimes against Americans. Then came the 1960s, and the surplus faded into a deficit. The book reveals how Washington's involvement in Vietnam provided the Japanese government with political cover for quietly pursuing a more independent course. Even in the 1970s, however, with America's one time ward turned into an economic powerhouse, the Nixon administration failed to pay much attention to Tokyo. Schaller shows that Kissinger openly preferred the more charismatic company of Zhou Enlai to that of Japanese technocrats, while economics bored him. The United States almost missed the fact that Japan had developed into a country that could say no, and very loudly.

Michael Schaller has won widespread acclaim for his earlier books on U. S. relations with Asia. His fearless judgments, his fluid pen, his depth of knowledge and research have all lifted him to the front rank of historians writing today. In Altered States, he illuminates the most important, and troubled, relationship in the world in a work certain to cement his reputation.

In Pink Globalization, Christine R. Yano examines the creation and rise of Hello Kitty as a part of Japanese Cute-Cool culture. Yano argues that the international popularity of Hello Kitty is one aspect of what she calls pink globalization—the spread of goods and images labeled cute (kawaii) from Japan to other parts of the industrial world. The concept of pink globalization connects the expansion of Japanese companies to overseas markets, the enhanced distribution of Japanese products, and the rise of Japan's national cool as suggested by the spread of manga and anime. Yano analyzes the changing complex of relations and identities surrounding the global reach of Hello Kitty's cute culture, discussing the responses of both ardent fans and virulent detractors. Through interviews, Yano shows how consumers use this iconic cat to negotiate gender, nostalgia, and national identity. She demonstrates that pink globalization allows the foreign to become familiar as it brings together the intimacy of cute and the distance of cool. Hello Kitty and her entourage of marketers and consumers wink, giddily suggesting innocence, sexuality, irony, sophistication, and even sheer happiness. Yano reveals the edgy power in this wink and the ways it can overturn, or at least challenge, power structures.

Japan remodeled : how government and industry are reforming Japanese capitalism

by Vogel, Steven Kent

Vogel - U.S.-Japan Relations in a Changing World Paperback – May 20, 2002

September 2001 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the San Francisco Treaty, formally ending the Second World War. In signing this treaty, Japan fundamentally transformed its position on the world stage. It established itself in the vanguard of the burgeoning cold war bulwark against the Soviet Union and its communist satellites, and wed itself to the United States through economic, political, and security ties that persist today. The half century since the establishment of the San Francisco system has seen highs and lows in the relations between the two countries, continuing even into the current war on terrorism. 

Manga in Europe: A short study of market and fandom

JM Bouissou, B Dolle-Weinkauff, M Pellitteri, A with Beldi

Manga: an anthology of global and cultural perspectives	55*	2010

Kawaii aesthetics from Japan to Europe: Theory of the Japanese “cute” and transcultural adoption of its styles in Italian and French comics production and commodified culture goods

The Italian anime boom: The outstanding success of Japanese animation in Italy, 1978–1984

M Pellitteri

Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies 2 (3), 363-381	17	2014

Manga in Italy: History of a powerful cultural hybridization

M Pellitteri

Cultural politics of J-culture and “soft power”: Tentative remarks from a European perspective

M Pellitteri

Golden Arches East 

5. McDonald's in Japan: Changing Manners and Etiquette

From the book Golden Arches East

Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney

Off Center

Power and Culture Relations Between Japan and the United States

Masao Miyoshi

Leaving Japan: Observations on a Dysfunctional U.S.-Japan Relationship (An East Gate Book) 1st Edition

by Mike Millard (Author)

Cold War Orientalism

Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961

by Christina Klein (Author)

March 2003

Screening Enlightenment: Hollywood and the Cultural Reconstruction of Defeated Japan (The United States in the World) Paperback – March 31, 2017

by Hiroshi Kitamura (Author)

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars    3 ratings

Part of: The United States in the World (34 books)

See all formats and editions

During the six-and-a-half-year occupation of Japan (1945–1952), U.S. film studios―in close coordination with Douglas MacArthur's Supreme Command for the Allied Powers―launched an ambitious campaign to extend their power and influence in a historically rich but challenging film market. In this far-reaching "enlightenment campaign," Hollywood studios disseminated more than six hundred films to theaters, earned significant profits, and showcased the American way of life as a political, social, and cultural model for the war-shattered Japanese population. In Screening Enlightenment, Hiroshi Kitamura shows how this expansive attempt at cultural globalization helped transform Japan into one of Hollywood's key markets. He also demonstrates the prominent role American cinema played in the "reeducation" and "reorientation" of the Japanese on behalf of the U.S. government.

According to Kitamura, Hollywood achieved widespread results by turning to the support of U.S. government and military authorities, which offered privileged deals to American movies while rigorously controlling Japanese and other cinematic products. The presentation of American ideas and values as an emblem of culture, democracy, and sophistication also allowed the U.S. film industry to expand. However, the studios' efforts would not have been nearly as extensive without the Japanese intermediaries and consumers who interestingly served as the program's best publicists. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from studio memos and official documents of the occupation to publicity materials and Japanese fan magazines, Kitamura shows how many Japanese supported Hollywood and became active agents of Americanization. A truly interdisciplinary book that combines U.S. diplomatic and cultural history, film and media studies, and modern Japanese history, Screening Enlightenment offers new insights into the origins of this unique political and cultural transpacific relationship.

Japan in Transformation, 1945-2010 (Seminar Studies) 2nd Edition

by Jeff Kingston (

The Japanese Through American Eyes

Sheila K. Johnson (1937 -) considers selected American notions towards the Japanese. This book is a much revised, updated, and expanded edition of American Attitudes Toward Japan, 1941-1975 (1975), and Amerika-jin no Nihon-kan (1986). Based, chiefly on ideas and notions openly, and subtley, expressed in novels, newsprint, magazines, tour guides, cartoons, movies, and televsion shows, Johnson pieces together salient views Americans (excluding those of Japanese-Americans) habor towards Japan. An interesting comparative basis as one considers contemporary perspectives

Carol Gluck

CHAPTER 19. House of Mirrors: American History-Writing on Japan

From the book Imagined Histories

David Gensaliter

A trenchant examination of the American operations of the three leading Japanese automobile manufacturers and their stunning effectiveness in winning over the American work force.

- NihonJinron

Myth of Japanese Uniqueness - Peter Dale:

The ‘nihonjinron’ is a body of writing and thought which constitutes a major and highly thought of academic industry in Japan. It analyses the Japanese identity and presupposes that the Japanese differ radically from other people in their make-up. It believes that their uniqueness is due to linguistic, sociological and philosophical differences.

First published in 1988, this book is a critical analysis of the thought on which the ‘nihonjinron’ is based. Placing particular emphasis upon psychoanalysis, which constitutes the centrepiece of the book, Peter Dale reasons that the ‘nihonjinron’ should be treated as a mythological system.