Written by the controversial owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun when he was Japan's leading political reporter, Japan's Backroom Politics is the translation of a classic study of the rough and tumble of Japanese politics and Liberal Democratic Party factions in the first two decades of postwar Japan. In addition to discussing the reasons for the resiliency of factions, he discusses in great detail the history of and personalities within the near-dozen factions of the LDP.

Translator's Preface
Introduction: The Defeated One: The Decline of Party Politicians
Chapter 1: The Backroom: Testimonies of Party Leadership Elections
Chapter 2: Popularity: Leadership and the People
Chapter 3: Money: The Basis for Politics
Chapter 4: Factions, Part 1: Steps to an Administration
Chapter 5: Factions, Part 2: Background of Leaders
Chapter 6: Multiparty Age: Undercurrents of the 1967 Elections
Chapter 7: The Myth of a Two-Party System: Recommendations for a Multiparty System
Chapter 8: The End of Backroom Politics: Administrations in a Multiparty Age
Afterword

Robert D. Eldridge is a former tenured associate professor of Japanese political and diplomatic history at the School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, and the author, editor, or translator of nearly 20 books, including Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington: The Memoirs of Miyazawa Kiichi, 1949-1954, also from Lexington Books. A 23-year resident of Japan, Eldridge is currently working on a book about the postwar prime ministers of Japan while serving as the political adviser to the United States Marine Corps in Okinawa.