Ian Jared Miller, Julia Adeney Thomas, Brett L. Walker, eds. Japan at Nature's Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2013. xiv + 322 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8248-3692-4; $30.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8248-3876-8.
Reviewed by Masami Yuki (Kanazawa University)
Published on H-Asia (March, 2015)
Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin)
An Environmental Turn in Japan Studies and History
To begin with, I should make clear that this review is not written by an expert in Japan studies or environmental history. I am not a historian nor a Japanologist. I am a literary critic, an ecocritic specifically, engaging in comparative study of literary environmentalism. As a literary critic, however, I have increasingly become interested in environmental history due to the recent emergence of environmental humanities. Placing emphasis on the necessity and importance of mutual learning and discussions among different disciplines, including history and literary studies, environmental humanities is expected to provide a platform on which to connect scholars, educators, and artists whose works have been developed in a rather closed and separated manner. By doing so, environmental humanities attempts to further more comprehensive and subtle examinations of issues of the environment. I have found this book useful in that it provides critical analyses of Japanese environmental history in domestic and global contexts, which certainly relate to what I do in ecocriticism. Yet the following review is no more than a literary scholar’s response to cutting-edge studies of Japanese environmental history. It is my humble hope that it will somehow contribute to an interdisciplinary conversation on Japanese environmental history.
The book contains fifteen essays, three in each of five parts, in addition to a preface and introduction. The majority of the contributors are from history and a handful are from other disciplines, such as political science, environmental economics, and comparative literature. Such a topography of contributors echoes the proposition of environmental humanities, suggesting the book’s innovative vision.
As Brett L. Walker implies in his preface, an idea of harmony with nature has been so deeply ingrained in Japanese culture and scholarly mind-set that “the environmental turn has been a latecomer to Japan studies, particularly historical studies” (p. xiii). The book’s overarching theme is to question such a myth of harmony and to “propose a new balance between nature and culture” (p. xiv). Ian Jared Miller follows up in his introduction, saying that furthering the environmental turn means “not only to reintroduce the study of the natural environment to the study of Japan but also to resituate Japan in the changing global environment” (p. 5). Miller is one of a few contributors who employ an idea of the Anthropocene in framing his discussion. Although the Anthropocene is curiously overlooked in Japan and more generally in Asia,[1] attention to the Anthropocene would help direct the readers’ focus to the intricate conceptual interplays between human and nature, as well as technology and the environment.
The effort to “propose a new balance between nature and culture” is reflected in the book’s structure as well. It begins with a critical reconsideration of terracentric history; moves onto concrete case studies of historicizing places and problems; provides different perspectives from which to see human interactions with the environment; and ends with examinations of the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns on March 11, 2011. According to one of the editors, the book was originally conceived at a conference in Montana in 2008, and the book’s final part, “The Triple Disaster of 3/11,” was most likely added in the process of editing. This implies the editors’ professionalism and passion in exploring “a new balance” between, and a new story/history of, human culture and the natural environment.
The scale of this book is wide ranging, from a specific case study of Mount Fuji as historicized agency to an encompassing lecture-like discussion on the history of pollution in Japan. The majority of the essays have a strong theoretical orientation, employing such theoretical frameworks as new materialism and “envirotechnical system,” while others—those that deal with 3/11 in particular probably because they cover a relatively new event—are rather expository. In either case, critical attention on a new balance between human and nature is carefully maintained, except for a few occasions in which an uncritical acceptance of Euro-American values (such as that with which to see environmental preservation as a sign of progress) is evident.
Though not flawless, this book is certainly an important point of reference for those who are involved in environmental history, Japan studies, and environmental humanities. Also, this book will serve well for those who are interested in such specific topics as the cultural history of Mount Fuji, animals in the urban setting, and whaling. It certainly enriched my knowledge on Japanese environmental history, showed me new methodologies, and guided me to an intellectual topos where literary studies and studies of history interact with each other.
Note
[1]. Mark Hudson addresses an issue of Asia and the Anthropocene, discussing why Asianists are slow in paying attention to the Anthropocene, suggesting the concept’s Euro-centeredness. See Mark Hudson, “Placing Asia in the Anthropocene: Histories, Vulnerabilities, Responses,” The Journal of Asian Studies 73, no. 4 (2014): 941-962.
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Citation:
Masami Yuki. Review of Miller, Ian Jared; Thomas, Julia Adeney; Walker, Brett L., eds., Japan at Nature's Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power.
H-Asia, H-Net Reviews.
March, 2015.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=42157
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