Political Thought and Japan’s New Left Movements: Transformations in Radical Theory

While the intellectual history of the New Left is dominated by scholarship on western thinkers, Japan’s radical theorists developed equally groundbreaking ideas, producing one of the most intense periods of political thought in the global twentieth century. Political Thought and Japan’s New Left Movements finally redresses this imbalance by assembling the first comprehensive collection of authoritative essays on the Japanese intellectuals who, by critically rethinking the Marxian legacy, defined their era. Highlighting the connections between these key figures, their historical circumstances and their biographies, this book provides concise, accessible overviews of the theoretical approaches that shaped and were shaped by Japan’s 1960s New Left movements, while also evaluating the development and impact of these intellectual contributions. In doing so, it demonstrates the distinctiveness and significance of Japanese left-wing thought, providing an invaluable resource for students of twentieth-century radical politics.

Christopher Perkins is Senior Lecturer in Japanese at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is the author of The United Red Army on Screen (2015) and The Tokyo University Trial and the Struggle for Order in Postwar Japan (2024), as well as numerous journal articles and translations on the pre and postwar Japanese student movement.

Ferran De Vargas is UKRI Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK, having previously been Juan de la Cierva-Formación Early-Career Postdoctoral Fellow at the Open University of Catalonia, Spain. He is the author of a book on the history of the Japanese New Left, Izquierda y revolución. Una historia política del Japón de posguerra [1945-1972] (2020) and of articles in academic journals such as positions: asia critique, Japan Forum, and Modern Asian Studies.