What to read after Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan?

This important new study of Kita Ikki, one of Japan’s influential pre-war idealogues, focuses on the twin poles of nationalism and socialism that inform his three principal works, located always in the context of the dominance of Western imperialism at that time. The three works are ‘The National Polity and Pure Socialism’ (Kokutairon oyobi junsei shakai shugi), in which he explores the nature of the modern Japanese state and its characteristics, ‘The Unofficial History of the Chinese Revolution’ (Shina kakumei gaishi), written to correct what he perceived as Japan’s misguided policy towards China, and ‘The Fundamental Principles for the Reorganization of Japan’ (Nihon kaizo hoan taiko) , which was said to have influenced the young army officers of the Imperial Way Faction who attempted the 26 February 1936 coup to bring about direct imperial rule. The coup failed and Kita was executed the following year for his involvement as the so-called ‘intellectual inspiration’. The second half of the book contains the first complete English translation (by Brij Tankha) of ‘The Fundamental Principles for the Reorganization of Japan’, providing the reader with an opportunity to hear the voice of an early twentieth-century Japanese intellectual confronting the challenge of the West’s domination and its implications for Japan; in so doing Kita helped galvanize support for an agenda involving Japan’s own imperial mission and the pathway to a ‘new Japan’.