The Reception of E.P. Thompson in Japan: The New Left, The Making, and “Moral Economy”
AbstractThis article traces the chequered history of the reception of E.P. Thompson in postwar Japan and tries to assess what kind of impact his thoughts and ideas had on the Japanese intellectual world. In so doing, this article will draw on interviews with several academics in Japan from various generations as well as written documents. The article begins with a survey of postwar left-wing politics in Japan, against which background Thompson was introduced as a New Left thinker. It also considers the National History Movement, whose problematic legacy seemed to condition the reception of The Making of the English Working Class in Japan in the 1960s. After exploring the limited reception of The Making among Japanese historians, we witness the more favourable reception of the concept of “moral economy”. The article demonstrates that the rather awkward history of the reception of E.P. Thompson in Japan cannot be understood without referring to the postwar concerns of Japanese intellectuals, concerns that changed fairly dramatically in the course of time.