Presenter: 松沢裕作 (Matsuzawa Yusaku, Keio University)

Discussant: Marnie Anderson (Smith College)

Moderator: 池田真歩 (Ikeda Maho, Tokyo Metropolitan University)

Here lie the foundations of contemporary Japanese society. From the late nineteenth century, when the status order of early modern Japan began to collapse, through the Meiji Restoration, and up to World War I, this book portrays Japanese society by focusing on how various social groups engaged with the market. It also examines media, political institutions, and movements for change to offer a comprehensive picture.

現代日本社会の原型がここに。近世の身分制社会が崩れる19世紀後半から，明治維新を挟んで，第一次世界大戦の頃までの日本社会を，さまざまな社会集団が市場とどうかかわっているかに注目して描き出す。メディアや政治のしくみ，変革を求める運動も取り上げ，社会の全体像をとらえる。

Presenter: 鶴園裕基 (Tsuruzono Yūki, Kanagawa University)

Discussant: Evan Dawley (Goucher College)

Moderator: Tadashi Ishikawa (University of Central Florida)

This book seeks to elucidate how Nihon-kakyō (ethnic Chinese and Taiwanese residents in Japan) came to face severe restrictions on their international mobility in the Cold War era. In the prewar period, Chinese and Taiwanese subjects were able to travel to Japan without passports. However, as the Cold War order took shape in East Asia after 1945, both the Japanese and Taiwanese authorities constructed increasingly stringent border and migration control regimes. At the time of the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the Japanese government deprived Taiwanese residents of their Japanese nationality and reclassified them, like migrants originating from the Chinese mainland, as “Chinese.” At the same time, however, Japan extended only limited recognition to the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan and deliberately left ambiguous whether the “Chinese” residing in Japan belonged to the ROC or to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Under these circumstances, Nihon-kakyō were prevented from returning to mainland China due to the absence of diplomatic relations between Japan and the PRC. Meanwhile, the ROC government, having retreated to Taiwan, imposed restrictions on the entry of overseas Chinese on the basis of martial law promulgated in 1949. As a result, during the Cold War period, Nihon-kakyō were effectively denied both the right to return to their “home country” and the right to have their affiliation formally recognized. Confronted with this predicament, they were driven to engage in political movements aimed at asserting affiliation with either of the rival Chinese state and securing their rights of residence in Japan as foreign nationals.

本書は、冷戦期に日本華僑と呼ばれた人びとが、いかにして国際移動を制約されるに至ったかを明らかにしようとする。戦前期、中国人や台湾人はパスポートなしに日本に渡航することができた。しかし戦後東アジアに冷戦体制が形成されていくなかで、日本と台湾の当局はそれぞれ厳格な出入国管理を構築していく。日本政府はサンフランシコ講和条約締結のタイミングで、台湾人の持つ日本国籍を喪失させ、大陸出身者と同様に「中国人」とした。しかし、日本政府は台湾の中華民国を限定的にしか承認せず、日本国内の「中国人」が中華民国、中華人民共和国のいずれに帰属するかを意図的に曖昧にした。こうした状況のなかで、日本華僑は日本と中華人民共和国の間の国交の不存在ゆえに中国大陸へ帰還することを制限された。その一方、台湾に撤退した中華民国は、1949年に発令した戒厳令を根拠として華僑の入境を規制した。これによって冷戦期の日本華僑は、「本国に帰還する権利」と、「帰属を確認する権利」を事実上、否定されることになった。これによって日本華僑は、いずれかの中国への帰属を主張し、日本における外国人としての居住権を確立することを目的とした政治運動に駆り立てられていったのである。

Presenter: 河西棟馬 (Kawanishi Toma, Institute of Science Tokyo)

Discussant: Hiromi Mizuno (University of Minnesota Twin Cities)

Moderator: Sayaka Chatani (National University of Singapore)

Will "late-comer countries" forever remain as consumers of technologies invented elsewhere? This ambitious work traces the lineage of pre-war Japanese engineers—such as Torikata Uichi, Yagi Hidetsugu, and Matsumae Shigeyoshi—who broke free from mere technological adoption and imitation. It sheds light on the driving forces that motivated these pioneers and the conditions that enabled their breakthroughs. By incorporating an examination of their failed visions and the constraints of their era, this study offers a penetrating analysis of their historic achievements in the history of technology. Recipient of the 38th Japan Society for the History of Industrial Technology Award (2025).

「後進国」は、発明された技術の利用者にとどまるのか。鳥潟右一や八木秀次、松前重義など、移植や模倣を脱した戦前の技術者たちの系譜を、彼らを突き動かした要因や跳躍を可能にした条件ともども明らかにする。挫折した構想や時代的制約も見据え、技術史的達成を冷静に分析した気鋭の力作。第38回日本産業技術史学会賞受賞 (2025)。

Presenter: 常松祐介 (Tsunematsu Yūsuke, Assistant Professor, School of Science and Engineering, Meiji University)

Discussant: Katja Schmidtpott (Professor of Japanese History, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany)

Moderator: Tadashi Ishikawa (Associate Professor of History, University of Central Florida)

This book argues that the achievements of the architectural profession in modern Japan lay not only in the creation of outstanding buildings but also in the formulation of policy visions for a new social order. It further contends that this capacity for institutional and social imagination reached its height during the Second World War. Rather than focusing on architects who designed buildings, the book examines “architectural administrators,” officials who regulated building activity through laws and administrative institutions. It traces how they expanded their influence as technocrats through collaboration with universities and the military. From the interwar period onward, architectural administrators sought to move beyond the regulation of individual buildings and to establish themselves as planners of cities and the national territory. By the wartime period, they had entered a wide range of national policy fields, including urban air defense, housing provision, and national land planning. Through a close reading of their extensive writings, this book explores how they drew upon professional expertise to formulate projects of social transformation. It thereby reinterprets the wartime regime not simply as a system imposed from above, but as one sustained by the active participation of reform-minded professional groups. Finally, by tracing how their ideals of social reform were reconfigured into rationales for the execution of war and the expansion of state control, the book reconsiders the deep entanglement of expert knowledge and state governance in modern Japan.

近代日本の建築界の業績とは、優れた建築デザインを生み出したことだけではなく、新たな社会のありかたを示す政策構想を打ち出したことにあり、とりわけ第二次世界大戦期にこうした構想力が最高潮に達していた、というのが本書の主張である。本書では建築物を設計する建築家ではなく、法に則り建築行為を統御する「建築行政官」に光を当て、彼らが大学や軍部と連携しながら、テクノクラートとしての影響力を拡張していった過程を検証する。戦間期以降、諸官庁に加わった建築行政官たちは、個々の建築物を規制する立場から、都市や国土全体を計画する立場への進出を企て、戦時期には都市防空・住宅供給・国土計画といった広範な国策領域に参画するに至っていた。本書では、建築行政官たちによって残された膨大な論考を読み解くことで、彼らが自身の専門知を足掛かりとして、いかなる社会革新を構想したのかを明らかにする。こうした検討を通して、戦時体制を単純な上意下達の体制と理解するのではなく、革新を志向する専門家集団の主体的な参画によって支えられたものとして捉え直す。さらに、彼らの掲げる社会改良の理念が、戦争遂行や国家統制を支える論理へと組み替えられていく道筋を跡づけることで、近代日本における専門知と国家統治との深い結びつきを問い直す。