Mobilizing Japanese Youth: The Cold War and the Making of the Sixties Generation

Sixties Generation is an ac ces si ble book for stu dents and schol ars who are in ter ested in the shap ing of Japan's 1960s gen er a tion. He shows how var i ous nonstate or ga nizations and individuals across the political spectrum made consequential eforts to "influence the political consciousness" and mobilize the first generation born afer the end of the Second World War (1). The au thor re con structs this largely un mapped phe nom e non that shaped the po lit i cal con scious ness of the young Jap a nese and concludes, "The sites of po lit i cal pro test be came an in vo luted space for 'Sixties Youth' to re cover their sense of hu man ity and per sonal iden ti ty" (5). Gerteis draws from a wide range of pri mary sources, in clud ing Sohy labor federation's publications and the films made by Wakamatsu Kji and Adachi Masao. Chapter 1, "Unions, Youth, and the Cold War," an a lyzes the gen er a tional gap be tween the youth work ers and se nior union lead ers in the so cial and po lit i cal turmoil of the 1960s. In this chap ter, Gerteis ar gues that the post ers and mag a zine ar ti cles created by the established labor organizations show "the emergence of archetypical representations of 'manhood' and 'womanhood'" (7). The author demonstrates that the representations of gender relations underwent little change, despite the development of the pro gres sive or even rad i cal pol i tics and move ments dur ing the pe ri od, which be came a source of a gen er a tional schism within the post war la bor movement. As for the dis cus sion of the youth and in ter gen er a tional con flict within the Jap a nese la bor move ment, Gerteis's pre vi ously published work "Losing the Union Man: Class and Gender in the Postwar Labor Movement" pro vi des a deeper anal y sis of the young work ers dur ing Japan's re mark able eco nomic growth that gen er ated the wide spread sense of afflu ence in the so ci e ty.1 Chapter 2 is ti tled "The Rise and Fall of the Jap a nese Red Army (JRA)." In this chap ter, the au thor tries to sit u ate the group within a global rad i cal move ment of the 1960s and 1970s. The story of Shigenobu Fusako, who went from an office lady to a leader of the rev o lu tion ary fac tion, is par tic u larly in trigu ing. Tracing the stories