McCormack and Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States 近刊予告

Introducing a book to be published in July, 2012. See also the publisher's website.

２０１２年７月発売予定の本（英語）を紹介します。『属国　米国の抱擁とアジアでの孤立』（凱風社、２００８年　新田準訳）らの著作で知られるガバン・マコーマック氏と、このブログの運営者の共著によるものです。表紙写真は沖縄の写真家、豊里友行氏によるものです。１２章は、与那嶺路代、宮城康博、知念ウシ、金城実、安次嶺雪音、吉田建正、浦島悦子、大田昌秀　各氏による「沖縄からの声」です。日本語版は法律文化社から出る予定です。@PeacePhilosophy

Resistant Islands:

Okinawa Confronts Japan and

the United States 

By Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu

Cover Photo by Toyozato Tomoyuki

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book offers the first comprehensive overview of Okinawan history from earliest times to the present, focusing especially on the recent period of colonization by Japan, its disastrous fate during WWII, and its current status as a glorified U.S. military base. The base issue is a hugely hot-button controversy in Japan and has become more widely known in the wake of Japan’s recent natural disasters and the U.S. military role in emergency relief.

 Adopting an “Okinawa-centered” view of Japan’s post-Cold War history and the U.S.-Japan strategic relationship, the authors focus on the 15-year Okinawan resistance against the U.S. and Japanese governments’ plan to build a new Marine air/naval base at Henoko, on the northeastern shore of Okinawa. They set these contentious issues in the context of Okinawa’s pivotal role in U.S. Pacific strategy, particularly its recasting in the post-Cold War era. More broadly, Okinawa rejects the base-dominated role allocated it by the U.S. and Japanese governments under which priority attaches to its military functions, as a kind of stationary aircraft carrier. The result has been to throw U.S.-Japan relations into crisis, bringing down one prime minister and threatening the incumbent if he is unable to deliver Okinawan approval of the new base. Okinawa thus has become a template for reassessing the troubled U.S.-Japan relationship; indeed, the geopolitics of the U.S. empire of bases in the Pacific. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Ryukyu/Okinawa: From Disposal to Resistance

Chapter 2: War, Memory, and Commemoration

Chapter 3: Japan’s American Embrace and the “Partnership” for Peace and Prosperity

Chapter 4: Okinawa: Separation and Reversion

Chapter 5: Henoko – The Unwanted Base

Chapter 6: The Hatoyama Revolt

Chapter 7: Post-Cold War – Elections and Democracy

Chapter 8: Environment: The “Non-Assessment”

Chapter 9: “Deepening” the Alliance – the Kan Agenda

Chapter 10: “Deepening” the Alliance – Washington Agendas

Chapter 11: Senkaku/Diaoyu: Okinawa as Militarized Outpost or as Bridge of Nations?

Chapter 12: Turning History Around - History as Lived Experience

Chapter 13: Prospect
*** Chapter 12 presents voices from Okinawa: Yonamine Michiyo, Miyagi Yasuhiro, chinin usii, Kinjo Minoru, Ashimine Yukine, Yoshida Kensei, Urashima Etsuko, and Ota Masahide.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at Australian National University in Canberra. 

Satoko Oka Norimatsu is founder and head of the Peace Philosophy Centre in Vancouver and a member of the University of British Columbia’s Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness. 

See Rowman and Littlefield's website.