State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan

State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan: The Public Man in Crisis by Andrew E. Barshay examines the dilemmas of Japanese intellectual life under the pressures of modern state formation and wartime mobilization. Through paired studies of Nanbara Shigeru, a professor of Western political thought at Tokyo Imperial University, and Hasegawa Nyozekan, a journalist and trenchant critic, Barshay illuminates the tension between “insider” and “outsider” positions in the public sphere during the imperial period (1868–1945). Nanbara, the insider, grappled with the contradiction of serving an imperial institution while resisting the emperor-centered kokutai ideology, seeking refuge in a Christian-inflected vision of moral order. Hasegawa, the outsider, defended a fragile humanistic and anarchic conception of community against the encroachments of the state, though he too was drawn into supporting its war aims. Both men demonstrate the paradoxical mixture of critique and complicity that defined Japan’s intellectuals in crisis.

Barshay situates these figures within a broader analysis of how the modern Japanese state conflated “publicness” with officialdom, narrowing the space for dissent even as it depended on intellectual authority for legitimacy. The book also traces the formative influence of these thinkers on Maruyama Masao, whose postwar scholarship bridged their divergent legacies. Engaging with debates on nationalism, fascism, and the role of the state, Barshay probes how intellectuals negotiated loyalty, survival, and conscience amid repression and war. Both a comparative study of public intellectuals and a cautionary tale about the modern state’s demand for allegiance, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan provides a powerful framework for understanding the price of national identity in the twentieth century and the enduring relevance of the “public man” in moments of crisis.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.