Democratizing the enemy : the Japanese American internment / Brian Masaru Hayashi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hayashi, Brian Masaru, 1955-

Contributor:

JSTOR (Organization)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japanese Americans--Forced removal and internment, 1942-1945.

Japanese Americans.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 319 pages.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2004]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

During World War II some 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and detained in concentration camps in several states. These Japanese Americans lost millions of dollars in property and were forced to live in so-called "assembly centers" surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed sentries. In this insightful and ground-breaking work, Brian Hayashi reevaluates the three-year ordeal of incarcerated Japanese Americans. Using previously undiscovered documents, he examines the forces behind the U.S. government's decision to establish internment camps. His conclusion: the motives of government officials and top military brass likely transcended the standard explanations of racism, wartime hysteria, and leadership failure. Among the other surprising factors that played into the decision, Hayashi writes, were land development in the American West and plans for the American occupation of Japan. What was the long-term impact of America's actions? While many historians have explored that question, Hayashi takes a fresh look at how U.S. concentration camps affected not only their victims and American civil liberties, but also people living in locations as diverse as American Indian reservations and northeast Thailand.

Contents:

Prologue : beyond civil rights

Governors and their advisers, 1918-1942

The governed : Japanese Americans and politics, 1880-1942

Establishing the structures of internment, from limited to mass internment, 1942-1943

The liberal democratic way of management, 1942-1943

"Why awake a sleeping lion?" : governance during the quiet period, 1943-1944

"Taking away the candy" : relocation, the twilight of the Japanese empire, and Japanese American politics, 1944-1945

The long shadow of internment

Toward human rights.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-303) and index.

Electronic reproduction. New York Available via World Wide Web.

Western History Association Robert G. Athearn Award, 2006.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781400837748

140083774X

Publisher Number:

99970187584

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.