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Leftist thought and activism stands as a defining force in the articulation of political culture and policy in modern Japan. Operating from the periphery of formal political power for the most part, the Japanese Left has had an impact that extends far beyond its limited success at the ballot box. The essays that compose this Oxford Festschrift range over a wide set of themes including the tragic careers of two prewar left-wing martyrs (Goto-Jones); Hisashi As , the great Socialist apostate (Kersten); the Left's evasion of constitutional sovereignty (Williams); the rise and fall of Nikky -s (Aspinall); the Left's impact on privatization and bureaucratic reform (Nakano); the demise of parliamentary Socialism (Hyde); the Left's recent embrace of free market principles (Schoppa); critical Japan studies and American empire since '9.11' (Williams); and history's final judgment on the fate of this great political movement (Banno).

Rikki Kersten is Professor of Modern Japan Studies at Leiden University, the

Netherlands. She is the editor of our Routledge/Leiden Series in Modern

East Asian History and Politics.

David Williams, one of Europe’s leading thinkers on modern Japan, is the

author of Japan: Beyond the End of History, Japan and the Enemies of Open

Political Science and Defending Japan’s Pacific War, all published by

Routledge.