On 7/9/2003 12:05 AM, John Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:

> A good question, but I don't think it's unanswerable. One answer is that the
> issues arising from WWII are still alive and kicking. Another is that, given
> the inevitable awareness Japan has of itself as the only country in the
> world which has been the victim of an atomic attack, some structured
> analysis of *why* it was attacked inthat way would not come amiss. And there
> are probably others, only I'm tired and heading upstairs for an early night!

I agree completely. There needs to be a balance (which is what I think 
Eric is trying to say as well). But I think focusing on the Japanese 
history textbooks is beside the point. As I mentioned, these textbooks 
-- both Japanese history and world history -- provide only a bare 
outline consisting of facts, names, and dates. They do not even make an 
attempt at analysis.

Eric mentions the "Peace studies" classes that the kids in Hiroshima 
have as part of their standard curriculum. I doubt very much that they 
use the same textbook they use for Japanese history class for Peace 
studies. They probably have separate materials for that class, or it may 
even be rather free-form. (I honestly don't know. My son does not have 
"Peace studies" at his school and I can say that from what I have seen 
of his textbooks and tests, and from talking with him, they do not seem 
to be trying to instill in him any sort of victim mentality.)

Anyway, the balance that we seem to agree is presently lacking ought to 
be added to the Peace studies curriculum, it seems to me. Trying to add 
it to the straight history courses would only mean that something else 
would need to be left out. I'd hate to see the kids have to give up on 
learning about, say, the Genpei War or the Ashikaga Shogunate because 
they had to set aside a couple weeks of their history class to cover all 
the bad things Japan did during the Pacific War.

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Scott Reynolds                                      sar@gol.com