The chrysanthemum and sword

Houghton Mifflin

1946

4 p., l., 324 p.

Assignment: Japan -- The Japaneses in the war -- Taking one's proper station -- The Meiji reform -- Debtor to the ages and the world -- Repaying one-ten-thousandth -- The repayment 'hardest to bear' -- Clearing one's name -- the circle of human feelings -- The dilemma of virtue -- Self-discipline -- The child learns -- The Japanese since VJ-Day

Written at the invitation of the U.S. Office of War Information, in order to understand and predict the behavior of the Japanese in World War II by reference to a series of contradictions in traditional culture, this book was influential in shaping American ideas about Japanese culture during the postwar occupation of Japan, and popularized the distinction between guilt cultures and shame cultures. Although it has received harsh criticism, the book has continued to be influential. Two anthropologists wrote in 1992 that there is "a sense in which all of us have been writing footnotes to [Chrysanthemum] since it appeared in 1946." Translated into Japanese in 1948, the book appeared in Japan during a period of intense national self-examination and influenced Japanese conceptions of themselves. It has also been said that there has been so much change since World War II in Japan that Benedict would not recognize the nation she described in 1946.

Английский