Wave-Rings in the Water: My Years With the Women of Postwar Japan

Review\nThis is the first American book written by a female occupation officer who fifty years ago was part of an effort to occupy a defeated Japan and help restore democracy. At the heart of Johnson's title lies not political encounters, but personal relationships she built with the Japanese people: her memoir is as much a chronicle of bridging East/West gaps as it is an account of developing friendships and understanding the role of women in Asian culture. -- Midwest Book Review\nFrom Library Journal\nMost recently, the post-World War II Allied occupation of Japan was explored in Richard B. Finn's Winners in Peace (Univ. of California, 1992). Yet Johnson, a former teacher, Girl Scout leader, and editor, is the first woman to write of her experiences as a woman occupation officer in Japan, where she served on the island of Shikoku from 1947 to 1951. Her account of her efforts to help Japanese women internalize democratic principles at the grass-roots level reveals much about postwar conditions in rural Japan and about women's struggles to achieve equality in a male-dominated society. A foreword by Japanese historian Yuba Moriguchi Tsuchiya provides historical context. Important for providing the long-neglected woman's point of view, this work is useful for women's studies collections in all libraries.?Katharine L. Kan, Hawaii State Lib., Honolulu
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