Overview

Paul Rusch first traveled from Louisville, Kentucky, to Tokyo in 1925 to help rebuild YMCA facilities in the wake of the Great Kanto earthquake. What was planned as a yearlong stay became his life's work as he joined with the Japan Episcopal Church to promote democracy and Western Christian ideals. Over the course of his remarkable life, Rusch served as a college professor and Episcopal missionary, and he was a catalyst for agricultural development, introducing dairy farming to highland Japan. In Paul Rusch in Postwar Japan, Andrew T. McDonald and Verlaine Stoner McDonald present Rusch's life as an epic story that crisscrosses two cultures, traversing war and peace, destruction and rebirth, private struggle and public triumph. As World War II approached, Rusch battled racial prejudice against Japanese Americans, yet also became an apologist for Japan's expansionist foreign policy. After Pearl Harbor, he was arrested as an enemy alien and witnessed the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. Upon his release to the US in 1942, he joined military intelligence and returned to Japan in that capacity during the US occupation. Though Rusch was of modest origins, he deftly climbed social and military ladders to befriend some of the most intriguing figures of the era, including prime ministers and members of the Japanese royal family. Though he is perhaps best remembered for introducing organized American football in Japan, his greatest legacy is the founding of the Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project (KEEP), a vehicle for feeding, educating, and uplifting the rural poor of highland Japan. Today his legacy continues to inspire KEEP in the twenty-first century to promote peace, cultural exchange, environmental sustainability, and ecological preservation in Japan and beyond.

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9780813176079

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The McDonalds' account... places Rusch in a broader context of US-Japan relations, surrounding the period of Japan's entry to the Pacific War and the US fight against communism. It is both readable for the general audience as a biography of a historically significant -- although not necessarily widely known -- figure, and informative for scholars interested in Japanese modern history, US diplomatic history, and the history of international relations. -- H-Net Reviews [ Paul Rusch in Postwar Japan] marvelously grounds Rusch's life and KEEP's legacy in the themes of faith, help, and hope, providing common ground for a variety of readers. In the end, the authors accomplish their task of 'explor[ing] Paul Rusch's contributions to the shaping of a postwar Japan and how his legacy, the Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project, continues to influence the world in the twenty-first century.' -- The Journal of Southern Religion

The McDonalds' account... places Rusch in a broader context of US-Japan relations, surrounding the period of Japan's entry to the Pacific War and the US fight against communism. It is both readable for the general audience as a biography of a historically significant -- although not necessarily widely known -- figure, and informative for scholars interested in Japanese modern history, US diplomatic history, and the history of international relations. -- H-Net Reviews

""[ Paul Rusch in Postwar Japan] marvelously grounds Rusch's life and KEEP's legacy in the themes of faith, help, and hope, providing common ground for a variety of readers. In the end, the authors accomplish their task of 'explor[ing] Paul Rusch's contributions to the shaping of a postwar Japan and how his legacy, the Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project, continues to influence the world in the twenty-first century.'"" -- The Journal of Southern Religion ""The McDonalds' account... places Rusch in a broader context of US-Japan relations, surrounding the period of Japan's entry to the Pacific War and the US fight against communism. It is both readable for the general audience as a biography of a historically significant -- although not necessarily widely known -- figure, and informative for scholars interested in Japanese modern history, US diplomatic history, and the history of international relations."" -- H-Net Reviews

Author Information

Andrew T. McDonald is a journalist who has traveled to Japan and written articles about KEEP for the Lexington Herald-Leader and Richmond Register. Verlaine Stoner McDonald is professor of communication at Berea College. She is also the author of The Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana.

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