Kondo Book Store and U.S. Propaganda in Postwar Japan


Here is my first Japanese bookstore trade label: The Kondo Book Store in the Ginza section of Tokyo. I found it in a copy of Homecoming, by Jiro Osaragi. It's been languishing for months in a backlog pile. I finally got around to looking at it and got a nice surprise in the form of some interesting history in U.S.-Japanese relations and psychological warfare following World War II.


This English translation was a special reprint edition of Knopf's first English translation. Published by Charles E. Tuttle (Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo) in 1955, this edition was sold only in Japan, Korea, and Okinawa. Perhaps someday I'll have trade labels from the stores in Korea and Okinawa that also stocked this book.

As the book deals with life in postwar (WWII) Japan, and the publication time frame includes post-Korean War, I can see how the book wound up on the shelves of Kondo Book Store and bookstores in Okinawa and Korea. U.S. occupation of Japan ended in 1952, so my guess is that this book and other English translations were intended primarily for Japanese readers who wanted to improve their English skills.

I was curious about the Kondo Book Store and its place in Japanese (specifically Tokyo) culture during the postwar years. I imagined Kondo and other bookstores playing important cultural rebuilding roles for a country devastated by war and seeking to redefine itself.

But I found some very interesting information about another war that began during U.S. occupation--that of propaganda to counteract the communist propaganda machine that was fighting for the minds of the Japanese. The United States Information Service (USIS) used various media as tools to influence Japanese thinking. Films were perhaps the most popular form, but books were included in the mix as well.

David E. Kaplan writes:
...U.S. psychological warfare waged in Japan and other Asian nations during the 1950s, according to recently declassified U.S. government documents. The most extensive operations appear to have been in Japan, where U.S. officials secretly financed feature films, TV programs, thousands of hours of radio programming, hundreds of books, and numerous intellectuals.
The advent of this psychological campaign was justified as a necessary counteraction to Communist propaganda in Japan. Kaplan writes further of the communists, with an angle on book publishing and bookselling:
Like the Americans, the Soviets had their successes. "Bookstores are loaded with Communist books," warned the NSC report on Japanese intellectuals. Alarmed by these sales, including a bestseller on Marxist economics, the Americans pushed into publishing as well. By 1955, the USIS was behind publication of more than 100 books per year in Japan--and could boast its own anti-communist bestsellers. Payments or subsidies went to friendly authors and publishers.
Was Charles E. Tuttle a "friendly publisher?" Charles E. Tuttle Publishing started in Japan in 1948, specializing in books about Japanese culture and English language books for Japanese readers trying to learn English. They are still in business today, as you may have already determined by clicking the link above. Tuttle was at the forefront of language studies between the two nations during this era and had a keen interest and understanding of what it would take to build good relations with a former enemy. Many English translations were published by Tuttle during the 1950s, which coincided with the USIS program.

The Tuttle name has been associated with the printing and publishing business out of Rutland, Vermont since the 1800s. I'm not sure of the exact connection with the company in Japan, but there is a connection, perhaps a spin-off company of some sort.

But I have to wonder if Tuttle's vision of publishing and bookselling in Japan coincidentally played into the hands of USIS initiatives, or did those initiatives recruit and place Tuttle into a prominent position to direct the Japanese mindset toward American interests? Charles E. Tuttle had served in the occupation forces and developed an interest in returning to start a publishing company.

Whereas the bibliographic detail for the book containing the Kondo trade label seemed trivial before, it now seems to have a possible, and quite interesting, relationship to the psychological warfare waged in publishing houses and bookstores across Japan during the 1950s and beyond.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to open a book

Image
Cataloging books the other day, I came across an 1890s multivolume set called Messages and Papers of the Presidents . Inside one of the volumes was a slip of printed paper with a bookbinder's message: How to Open a Book . The set was published by the Government Printing Office, so they are the likely source of this piece of paper, which reprints a passage from a publication titled, Modern Bookbinding . No other bibliographical detail is included for that title, but I have found a magazine from that era, Modern Bookbinding and Their Designers . No clue, though, as to the author of this particular piece. You might wonder (I did) why there would be a need for instructions to open a book. And if you put those instructions inside the book, doesn't that defeat the purpose somewhat? Opening a book is not as easy as you might think. At least if you read these instructions and try to follow them. Here's the gist of it in the opening run-on sentence: Hold the book with its back on a
Read more

A Bookaholic and Bibliophile in Ukraine

Image
A favorite piece in my Bibliophemera collection is an unused postcard illustrated by Ukrainian artists Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv. It features two interesting, whimsical creatures embracing each other while maintaining engagement with their books. Cat-like and bird-like, one in high heels and one barefoot, one with a long tail and prominent ears and one with tail feathers and no visible ears, both with beaks, and both with books. They can’t put their books down even in this intimate moment. Appropriately, they are labeled Bookaholic and Bibliophile. Might they even be an imaginative rendering of the artists themselves? Romana and Andriy were both born in Lviv, Ukraine in 1984 and continue to live and work there. The illustration on the postcard is a fitting depiction of their artistic lives where books and their illustrations comprise their passion for illustration, book design, and writing. Together, they started Art Studio Agrafka in Lviv where they have produced award-win
Read more

F.F. Hansell & Bro., New Orleans 1900

Image
But for the winds of fate that first weekend in September of 1900, the building pictured above (and below), may have crumbled and the publishing & bookselling firm of F.F. Hansell in New Orleans would not have had produced the billhead above. What if the Great Storm of 1900 that leveled Galveston on September 8, 1900--America's worst natural disaster--had caught steering currents that took it north well before a Texas landfall? Hansell's billhead, dated September 28, 1900, owes its existence to the elements of nature, whatever they were at the time: High pressure over New Orleans pushing the storm west? A weak front approaching the Texas coast, pulling the storm toward it? Whatever, this storm could just as easily have veered north with a change in conditions and destroyed New Orleans. A lot of these storms that enter the Gulf of Mexico seem to make that right turn before striking the Texas coast. We (Houston-Galveston area) got lucky last summer with Gustav. Not so lucky w
Read more