‘Forgetting, even getting history wrong, is an essential factor in the formation of a nation, which is why the progress of historical studies is often a danger to nationality.’ Ernest Renan

In 2002, the Japanese government built the “Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims” within the Hiroshima Peace Park. It is located less than two hundred meters from the A-Bomb Peace Museum operated by the Hiroshima City Council. This new Memorial Hall, funded and run by the Japanese government, includes the following message on one of the wall panels:

As discussed in Greene's essay, the belief in the safety of nuclear power has historically been quite strong. Jeff Kingston picks up this idea in his piece, characterizing the faith in absolute safety a “myth” that blinded the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese government to the potential dangers of nuclear power. The story that Kingston tells is about how environmental events in the form of an earthquake and tsunami together with human error caused a disaster with grave environmental and human consequences. He argues that the power of an idea, the inadequate knowledge of politicians, and the vested interests of bureaucrats and businessmen resulted in a lack of attention to environmental risks and shortcomings in emergency procedures. Or to put it more pointedly, TEPCO and government regulators failed for a variety of reasons to take seriously the risks of a tsunami or earthquake and to respond adequately to the dangers of radiation. Kingston's essay also prompts us to remember the privileged position from which historians think and write about the past, with the benefit of hindsight, when convincing ideas have been revealed as myth and human failings have been exposed by catastrophe.

The five-day Russo-Georgian War in the Caucasus brought into sharp focus many conflicts rooted in the region's history and in aggressive US-NATO policies since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Notable among these were the military encirclement of Russia and attempts to control energy resources in areas long dominated by the Soviet Union. The net effect was to hasten a dangerous new era of rivalry between the world's two most powerful nuclear weapons states, one which will be shaped hereafter by the current global recession and the changes it is bringing about in the economic practices of all states.

This article strives to give a voice to survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake who suffered from the tsunami but not the nuclear disaster; their invisibility makes the case that these survivors are a separate group of Japan's “abandoned people.” They have been poorly represented in discussions on Japan's future energy policy; Thompson uses individual accounts to explain the residents’ “short and long-term needs, the full social, cultural, and economic impact of the tsunami disaster, and the future prospects of the region.”

Reorienting the southern half of the Korean Peninsula away from the former Japanese colonial government's anti-democratic, anti-American and militaristic ideology while establishing orderly government was among the goals of the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK, 1945-1948). To help achieve this aim on a wide front and as quickly as possible, USAMGIK's Motion Picture Section in the Department of Public Information arranged the exhibition of hundreds of Hollywood films to promote themes of democracy, capitalism, gender equality and popular American culture and values. While U.S. troops in the field enjoyed the increased availability and calibre of American feature films, the Korean government-in-waiting was affronted by their perceived immorality. Standard Korean film histories focus on the hardships endured by Korean filmmakers, and the conflicts among them, and on Hollywood's monopoly of the screen in the era, a situation which USAMGIK film policy - strikingly similar to the ordinances previously set in place by the Japanese - assisted. This study demonstrates how many of these ‘spectacle ’ films, which have hitherto largely gone unlisted, were designed to inculcate Western notions of liberty among Koreans, while distracting them from a tumultuous political scene. However, the films exhibited did not always live up to this lofty purpose. Along with positive portrayals of the ‘American way of life ’, representations of violent, anti-social and misogynistic behavior were foreign to Korean cultural and aesthetic traditions, and often provoked negative responses from local audiences.

For almost two centuries American government, though always imperfect, was also a model for the world of limited government, having evolved a system of restraints on executive power through its constitutional arrangement of checks and balances.

Since 9/11 however, constitutional practices have been overshadowed by a series of emergency measures to fight terrorism. The latter have mushroomed in size, reach and budget, while traditional government has shrunk. As a result we have today what the journalist Dana Priest has called two governments: the one its citizens were familiar with, operated more or less in the open: the other a parallel top secret government whose parts had mushroomed in less than a decade into a gigantic, sprawling universe of its own, visible to only a carefully vetted cadre - and its entirety…visible only to God.

On December 8, 2005 Prime Minister Koizumi announced that Japan's Self-Defense Forces would remain for another year in Samawa in support of the US war in Iraq. Their mission: to provide “reconstruction and humanitarian assistance”. What has the 500 person SDF mission accomplished and at what cost? How have local people responded to its presence?

Prisoners of conscience, communists, antiwar activists, martyrs for Japan's tottering pacifist constitution: Obora Toshiyuki, Onishi Nobuhiro and Takada Sachimi have been called many things since February 2004.

In the world of right-wing bloggers, they represent the dying strains of a 60-year-old refrain: no matter how the world changes, Japan must stay out of international conflict and remain true to a yellowing document written under US occupation in 1947. For others, including supporters who contributed 3-4 million yen to their legal fees, they are the stubborn keepers of the antiwar flame, the personification of pacifist ideals in the face of huge odds.

Nick Cunningham of Oil Price.com has written a timely article summarizing the World Cup's gargantuan energy consumption and carbon footprint. The World Cup soccer competition underway in Brazil is held quadrennially, and is apparently the most watched sporting event of all. This year's games are to culminate in the July 17 finale in Rio de Janeiro. The games appear likely to set both a viewing record as well as a record for energy consumption and carbon emissions. An estimated 900 million watched the opening ceremonies of London's 2012 Olympics. But the World Cup governing body FIFA's research suggests 909.6 million viewers watched at least a minute of the 2010 World Cup, and Cunningham tells us there may be as many as 3 billion viewers for this event in 2014. Moreover, broadcasting's technical innovations are proceeding apace. Ultra-high definition broadcasts (expected to become standard in 2017) are being used for three of this year's matches, taking advantage of the event's eyeball-dense economics. The official match ball is the Adidas Brazuca, one of which has its own twitter account and micro-cameras studding its surface.

The last major change to Japan's secrecy law was made in 2001 when the Diet revised the Self-Defense Forces Law (jietai-ho) to include a new provision protecting information designated as a “defense secret” (boei himitsu). During the extraordinary Diet session that opens on October 15, the Abe administration plans to submit a “Designated Secrets Protection” bill (tokutei himitsu hogo hoan) to the Diet with the goal of strengthening Japan's secrecy regime.

Building no dams at all would be best. This is clear. How can we open discussion concerning the destruction of dams that have outlived their usefulness? Kumamoto Prefecture becomes the first to take up the challenge of dam removal. Summer has come to the Kumagawa River. Local fishermen who ply the waters for ayu sardines as a livelihood continue to decrease, but tourists from Tokyo and the Kansai area coming for the sport of it are on the up.

The river is broad, the water clear, and the 30cm-long “shaku ayu” with their distinctive aroma when cooked are drawing more and more people. The government's unprecedented plan to expropriate the river's fishing rights is currently deadlocked, thanks to the stubborn resistance of the residents protesting the construction of the Kawabegawa River dam upstream which would be the second largest in Kyushu.

The Japanese House of Councillors election will be held on July 21, 2013. It now seems certain that PM Abe Shinzo's Liberal Democratic Party will follow its landslide win in the December 2012 House of Representatives election with another overwhelming victory. This essay summarizes the results of recent Japanese opinion polls in order to identify major election issues and assess what it is about the new iteration of Abe's LDP that has made them so popular with the public.

It is widely assumed that the Japan-U.S. military alliance plays a key role in securing peace in Northeast Asia. It not only shores up procedural democracy in Japan and South Korea but also assures Japan's neighbors, China in particular, of Japan's commitment to pacifism. Close analysis of the current stage of neonationalism and neoliberal austerity economics in Japan, as exemplified by the government that recently took over in Tokyo, conveys a different impression.

In the standard U.S. image, North Korea is a monolithic, Stalin-style dictatorship controlled by one man, Kim Jong Il. But the key reason for North Korean intransigence in the nuclear crisis with the United States is that Kim does not have unchallenged control over foreign and defense policy. The North Korean power structure is deeply divided between pragmatists who favor a nuclear deal with the United States and increasingly assertive hardliners who argue that a tough posture is needed to stop the Bush administration from pursuing “regime change” in Pyongyang.

2008—Annus Horribilis for the world economy—produced successive food, energy and financial crises, initially devastating particularly the global poor, but quickly extending to the commanding heights of the US and core economies and ushering in the sharpest downturn since the 1930s depression.

As all nations strive to respond to the financial gridlock that began in the United States and quickly sent world industrial production and trade plummeting, there has been much discussion of the ability of the high-flying Chinese economy to weather the storm, of the prospects for the intertwined US and Chinese economies, even of the potential for China to rise to a position of regional or global primacy. The present article critically explores these possibilities.

The demolition of a French empire at Dien Bien Phu is inspiration to a Taliban aiming to erode the resolve of the United States and its allies, writes Paul Rogers.

There have been many suggestions among media and military analysts since 2003 of possible parallels between the war in Iraq and the United States imbroglio in Vietnam that ended so humiliatingly in 1975. The argument is most prominently made by critics of both wars, though it has also been articulated by defence analysts and officials concerned that the US learns the “right” lessons from its costly Vietnam experience.

Blaxell and Fedman make reference to the displacement and deculturation of Ainu in the process of Hokkaidō's incorporation into modern Japan. Indeed, the assimilation of Ainu resulted in what some have characterized as near “cultural extinction” and provoked enduring worries about the loss of Ainu identity as mixed marriages between Ainu and Japanese increased; practices in clothing, housing, and food became more Japanese; and the Ainu language fell out of daily use. In response, there have been attempts, especially since the 1970s to protect, revive, and promote Ainu culture. Kayano Shigeru (1926-2006) was a prominent conservationist of Ainu culture who, in 1999, offered in a children's book an adaptation of an Ainu kamuy yakur, a song of gods and demigods. Or more precisely, a yakur is an epic poem that draws on Ainu oral traditions, and kamuy are spirit forces that are believed to control the visible universe. This particular kamuy yakur, translated into English by Kyoko Selden, is about an encounter between Pikatakamuy, the goddess of the wind, and Okikurmi, the guardian god of the Ainu. Consider this song as a primary source that speaks to Ainu views of gods, nature, and the relationship between humans and nature. And compare this to the understandings of the natural environment that were discussed in the Blaxell and Fedman essays, with sensitivity to both resonances and tensions. Kayano Shigeru wore many hats as a promoter of Ainu culture. In one significant legal case he became an environmental activist against the construction of the Nibutani Dam on the Saru River in Hokkaidō during the 1990s. Like many environmental activists in Japan over the last century, one inspiration was Tanaka Shōzō, profiled in the next essay.

Despite his recently failed third attempt to become prime minister, Aso Taro remains one of Japan's best-known and most influential politicians. The former foreign minister still aspires to the top post and in two books published earlier this year he has sketched a road map for the nation.

Japan the Tremendous, a bestseller written in a populist tone, highlights the peaceful nature of postwar Japan and calls the country a “fount of moral lessons” for Asia. Arc of Freedom and Prosperity: Japan's Expanding Diplomatic Horizons expatiates on Aso's tenure as foreign minister from October 2005 to August 2007.

Since the Democratic Party took power in Japan with the Hatoyama administration in September 2009, there has been little movement on immigration issues in Japanese politics. There has, however, been notable discussion by civil society commentators who are advocating the establishment of some form of regularized immigration policy as a partial solution to Japan's demographic decline. Among them one could mention the policy proposals made by the Council on Population Education/Akashi Research Group (2010), “Seven Proposals for Japan to Reestablish its Place As a Respected Member of the International Community: Taking a Global Perspective on Japan's Future.” One of the seven proposals is to enact an Immigration Law and establish an Immigration Agency. The Council notes, “Political will and leadership will be required to take the necessary action for the enactment of such a law” (Council on Population Education/Akashi Research Group, 2010:6). In the current economic doldrums, however, with the media reporting on the difficulties even college students are facing trying to secure jobs before spring graduation, this political will is quite unlikely to surface.

The murders committed by AUM Shinrikyo guru Asahara Shoko and his henchmen may be the most malevolent crimes in Japanese history. March 20, 1995 was Japan's 9/11, and but for a little dumb luck—including the failure to puncture all the bags of sarin that were planted in the subway trains—the death toll could have been much higher than 13 and the number of persons injured might have reached five digits instead of the true total of 6300.