Business Reform during the U.S. Occupation of Japan, 1945-1952

FAIN: FO-273920-21

Steven J. Ericson
Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH 03755-1808)

Research and writing leading to a book on the history of programs to break up big business during the U.S. Occupation of Japan, 1945-52.

I propose to complete the research and most of the writing for a book on programs to break up big business in occupied Japan and the legacies of those programs for the Japanese corporate world. I am particularly interested in complicating conventional interpretations, for example, that an early reform phase gave way after 1947-1948 to a recovery phase; in highlighting Japanese agency in modifying—and not just resisting and delaying—Occupation orders; and in challenging the common tendency to minimize the long-term significance of Occupation reforms for Japanese business in the decades that followed. Besides historians of modern Japan, this work will be of interest to scholars who work on U.S. foreign policy and international relations, on contemporary Japanese business, and, from a comparative perspective, on U.S. military occupations abroad and on business competition and cooperation or collusion.