Timothy S. George is Professor of Japanese History at the University of Rhode Island, USA.
Christopher Gerteis is Senior Lecturer in the History of Contemporary Japan at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK.

Does Japan really matter anymore? The challenges of recent Japanese history have led some pundits and scholars to publicly wonder whether Japan's significance is starting to wane. The multidisciplinary essays that comprise Japan Since 1945 demonstrate its ongoing importance and relevance. Examining the historical context to the social, cultural, and political underpinnings of Japan's postwar development, the contributors re-engage earlier discourses and introduce new veins of research.
Japan Since 1945 provides a much needed update to existing scholarly work on the history of contemporary Japan. It moves beyond the 'lost decade' and 'terrible devastation' frameworks that have thus far defined too much of the discussion, offering a more nuanced picture of the nation's postwar development.

Introduction: Revisiting Postwar Japan, Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S. George \ Part I: Civic Imaginations \ 1. The Art of Bourgeois Culture in Kamakura, Laura E. Hein \ 2. Furusato-zukuri: Saving Home Towns by Reinventing Them, Timothy S. George \ 3. Searching for Furusato History in Kaminoseki, Martin Dusinberre \ Part II: Legacies of War and Occupation \ 4. Dreaming Ryukyu: Shifting and Contesting Identities in Okinawa, David Tobaru Obermiller \ 5. Beyond Black Market: Neighborhood Associations and Food Rationing in Postwar Japan, Katarzyna Cwiertka \ 6. Nurses in Postwar Japan, Sally A. Hastings \ 7. Japan's Other Forgotten Soldiers, Tetsuya Fujiwara \ Part III: State Policy for a Late-Capitalist Society \ 8. The Post-Industrialization of the Developmental State, Lonny E. Carlile \ 9. Reassessing Japan's Big Bang: Twenty Years of Financial Regulatory Reform, Bruce Aronson \ 10. Endless Modernization: Japan's Postwar History of Fisheries Policy and Development, Satsuki Takahashi \ Part IV: Looking Out, Looking Back \ 11. Lofty Dreams: Pan American World Airways and Its Defining Presence in Postwar Japan, Christine Yano \ 12. Marketing History as Social Responsibility, Christopher Gerteis \ 13. Memorializing the Spirit of Wit and Grit in Postindustrial Japan, Hiraku Shimoda \ Conclusion, Stephen Vlastos