ABSTRACT
The new trends and social forces of the period following the First World War represent the origins of phenomena that we often associate with postwar Japan-an urban middle-class society, mass media and a mass culture, consumerism, a women’s movement, a low birth rate and minority problems. These aspects of present-day Japan have been attributed to the Americanisation of the Occupation period or to the more recent affluence accompanying the ‘economic miracle’ of the 1960s, but as can be seen from the studies in this book, they had their beginnings in the 1920s and 1930s.
