Overview

In The Ashio Riot of 1907, Nimura Kazuo explains why the workers at the Ashio copper mine-Japan's largest mining concern and one of the largest such operations in the world-joined together for three days of rioting against the Furukawa Company in February 1907. Exploring an event in labor history unprecedented in the Japan of that time, Nimura uses this riot as a launching point to analyze the social, economic, and political structure of early industrial Japan. As such, The Ashio Riot of 1907 functions as a powerful critique of Japanese scholarly approaches to labor economics and social history. Arguing against the spontaneous resistance theory that has long dominated Japanese social history accounts, Nimura traces the laborers' unrest prior to the riots as well as the development of the event itself. Drawing from such varied sources as governmental records, media reports, and secret legal documents relating to the riot, Nimura discusses the active role of the metal mining workers' trade organization and the stance taken by mine labor bosses. He examines how technological development transformed labor-management relations and details the common characteristics of the laborers who were involved in the riot movement. In the course of this historical analysis, Nimura takes on some of the most influential critical perspectives on Japanese social and labor history. This translation of Nimura's prize-winning study-originally published in Japan-contains a preface by Andrew Gordon and an introduction and prologue written especially for this edition.

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9780822320180

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Reviews

Nimura is by all measures a leading figure in the field of Japanese labor history. And he has much to tell us about how labor in Japan was transformed in the Meiji period from traditional structures to a newer and more 'modern' system. -Fred G. Notehelfer, UCLA Center for Japanese Studies

For students of comparative labor history as well as for those interested in the industrialization of Japan this book is a useful new addition that provides many important insights into the way in which premodern forms of labor organization shaped and limited the emergence of a modern labor force in Japan's leading mining complex. The translation of Nimura's award winning study has been ably carried out by Terry Boardman and Andrew Gordon. The latter deserves further thanks for editing the work in an effective manner, allowing the essence of Nimura's arguments to be retained in this abridged version of the original. <br>--F. G. Notehelfer, Journal of Social History

Author Information

Kazuo Nimura is Professor of History at the Ohara Institute for Social Research at Hosei University, Japan. Andrew Gordon is Professor of History at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Kazuo Nimura is Professor of History at the Ohara Institute for Social Research at Hosei University, Japan. Andrew Gordon is Professor of History at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University.

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