ABSTRACT
W hen doing research on the life and works of a scholar, especially an influential intellectual such as Maruyama
Maruyama is often called the foremost 'intellectual leader' of the postwar era in Japan. The range ofhis works is very wide and goes from comments on the Kojiki (712 AD) to an incisive analysis and rejection of the militarist system of the pre-war period. His activity was most conspicuous in the 1950s, when he was known as the intellectual, descending from his ivory tower to discuss publicly the policy of the government, in this case that of Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke and the renewal of the peace treaty with the US. But a career that spans almost half a century gave Maruyama many opportunities to invest energy elsewhere, and left us a heritage full of contrasts and continuities, straight lines and complex fractures.
