2011/01/28 by Sandra Wilson · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Japanese History and Culture #Asian Culture and Media Studies #Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.2010.00568.x
openalex publication_date 2011/01/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Using official materials and media commentary, this article examines two large-scale spectacles and their implications for post-war Japanese nationalism. Discursively, the Olympics and the World Exposition presented a clear vision of Japan: as a nation at the forefront of the international scene, fit to act as a champion of the non-Western world and firmly unified internally. In concrete ways, the two events strengthened the process of national integration that was gathering pace in the nineteen-sixties, especially through the provision of new networks of transport and communications. They also helped to rehabilitate the post-war Japanese state, so that it could more readily be seen as a benign entity devoted to the national interest and the people's welfare. The article illuminates a key moment in the emergence of new national self-images and in the construction of national life in post-war Japan.