ARTICLES
Letter from Iran
In a gritty neighborhood of South Teheran not long ago, Iran’s animated opposition movement gathered at a mosque to mark a grim occasion. It was November 23, 2000 a year since state security agents assassinated Dariush Foruhar, the longtime leader…
‘Our’ Gide?
This article focuses on the books “Gore Vidal: A Biography,” by Fred Kaplan and “Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking. Collected Sex Writings,” edited by Donald Weise. These books are biographies of Gore Vidal. Vidal’s life was that fought between the public…
Dark victory
US post-Cold War triumphalism masks a manifest uncertainty about its destiny in the 21st century In late April 1945, on one of the final days of WWII, a poignant scene unfolded on the banks of the River Elbe some miles southwest…
Harnessing the Rising Sun
EMBRACING DEFEAT: Japan in the Wake of World War II. By John W. Dower. Norton/New Press. 676 pp. $29.95. TOKYO UNDERWORLD: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan. By Robert Whiting. Pantheon. 372 pp. $27.50….
Globalism’s Pen Pal
The article focuses on the book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization,” by Thomas L. Friedman. Friedman is a globalist and a futurist and a techie true believer, but he thinks people should be separated according to race,…
What does it mean to be modern? Indonesia’s reformasi
How is a nation born? Otto von Bismarck, with his terrifying face, his huge body, and his heavy clothes, would answer “Through blood and iron.” … However, it is also essential to hold on to myths and even dreams—no matter…
Japan: The enigma of American power
“The Japanese can neither love the Americans nor endure being loved by them.” —Ambassador Sir Oliver Morland to the British Foreign Office, 1963(1) The air station at Kadena is not merely the largest of the 39 U.S. military bases in…
What Memoir Forgets
The article focuses on the genre of memoirs in literature. Memoirs is reality based literature. It represents the democratization of the written word. The only encouraging thing about the phenomenon is the number of people who suspect it. This indicates…
Remembering Japan: A bilateral history
“But the essence of a nation is that all the individuals share a great many things in common, and also that they have forgotten some things.” —Ernest Renan, What is a Nation?, 1881 A little more than a year ago,…
The Closed Shop
The article comments on legal procedures of Japan. In 1997 Japan’s Supreme Court handed down a startling decision after more than three decades of legal warfare over the Education Ministry’s censors. Japan has an independent judiciary in name only– one…
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