The Fate of the Social in Modern Life: American Social Scientists and Japan as Archive

In the decades following World War II, American social scientists turned to the study of Japanese society as an emerging ally and fellow capitalist democracy. At a time when influential theories of modernization predicted the decline of kinship, community, hierarchy, and collective obligation, Japan presented a puzzle. It was an advanced industrial and capitalist society in which village, family, corporate welfare, and moral persuasion in public institutions played powerful roles in organizing everyday life. ​This talk examines how postwar scholars treated Japan not simply as an object of stud