Review: Asia: Keystone
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200205700412 |
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
families
were
lost in
the
assault,
the
authors
believe
that
several
hun-
dred
Koreans
were
killed
over
several
days
of
attacks
in
late
July.
The
authors
describe
the
racism
of
American
soldiers
and
other
mis-
deeds
of
the
United
States
military,
including
strafing
of
refugees
by
the
American
air
force
and
the
blowing
up
several
bridges
loaded with
non-combatants. The
authors
studied
the
long-term
impact
of
the
conflict
on
civilians
and
soldiers
and
found,
not
surprisingly,
that
per-
petrators
and
victims
alike
suffered
significant
trauma.
This
book
should
be
read
by
anyone interested
in
the
history
of
modern
warfare.
It
shows
how
excellent
research,
combined
with
oral
history,
can
shape
our
understanding
of
events
hidden
out
of
fear,
government
propa-
ganda,
and
the
cold
war.
KEYSTONE
The
American
occupation
of
Okinawa
and
U.S.-Japanese
relations
Nicholas
Evan
Sarantakes
College Station:
Texas
A&M
University
Press,
2000,
264
pp,
us$34.95,
ISBN
0-89096-969-8
Sarantakes
examines
the
contemporary
history
of
American relations
with
Okinawa,
an
island
located
in
the
Ryukyu
chain
about
1,000
miles
south
of
Tokyo in
the
East
China
Sea.
The
Ryukyus
had
been
incorporated into
Japan
in
1879,
but
the
United
States
military
acquired
them
during
the Second
World
War.
Although
some
of
the
northern
islands were
returned
to
Japan
in
1953,
the
United
States
military
governed
Okinawa
from
1945
to
1972.
Under
the
Japanese
Peace
Treaty,
Japan
retained
'residual
sovereignty'
over
the
Ryukyus,
but
Sarantakes
argues
that
this
was
a
legal
fiction,
and
that
Okinawa
was
an
American
colony.
Many
Okinawans
objected
to
American
rule.
The
book
highlights
a
number
of
incidents
that
placed
the
local
population
at
odds
with
their
American
overseers.
In
1956,
the
people
of
Naha
elected
a
mayor who belonged
to
the
island's
communist
party.
When
the
American
military commander
passed
regulations
that
facilitated the
mayor's
removal
from
office,
the
city
elected
a
socialist.
In
1962,
the
conservative
Okinawan
legislature passed
a
reso-
lution
that
referred
to
the
United
States
as
a
colonial
power. America
held
on
to
Okinawa
because
the
island
was
a
'keystone'
of
its
strategy
in
the
Pacific
and
because
the
military lobbied
forcefully
to
retain
it.
Until
the
mid-1960s,
United
States
economic
aid
was
'the
key
to
gaining
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Autumn
2002
653
To continue reading
Request your trial