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ORGANIZING THE SPONTANEOUS: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. By Wesley Sasaki-Uemura. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 2001. xiv, 293 pp. US$27.95, paper. ISBN 0-8248-2433.
In recent years there has been a general revival of interest among scholars in the area of civil society, civic participation and citizen activism. In his new book Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan, Wesley SasakiUemura makes an important contribution to Japan scholarship in this area by providing a new, more complex portrayal of the individuals and citizen groups that participated in the protests against the renewal of the revised U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Anpo) in 1960. Through a rich narrative exploration of four citizen groups, Sasaki-Uemura's book casts a new light on the Anpo protests by revealing the diversity of citizen protestors and types of citizen activism present in the May and June demonstrations. Going beyond the more partisan and ideological battles waged by student and labour union activists who were on...