Kamikaze, cherry blossoms, and nationalisms : the militarization of aesthetics in Japanese history
Why did almost one thousand highly educated ""student soldiers"" volunteer to serve in Japan's tokkotai (kamikaze) operations near the end of World War II, even though Japan was losing the war? In this fascinating study of the role of symbolism and aesthetics in totalitarian ideology, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney shows how the state manipulated the time-honored Japanese symbol of the cherry blossom to convince people that it was their honor to ""die like beautiful falling cherry petals"" for the emperor. Drawing on diaries never before published in English, Ohnuki-Tierney describes
1 online resource (xvii, 411 pages) : illustrations
9780226620688, 9780226620909, 0226620689, 0226620905
648760888
The symbolism of cherry blossoms in pre-Meiji Japan
The road to pro rege et patria mori: naturalization of imperial nationalism
The making of the tokkōtai pilots
Nationalisms, patriotisms, and the role of aesthetics in Méconnaissance