Year of the Wild Boar : An American Woman in Japan

Rating:
Summary: An American woman's 1935 trip to Japan (Nonfiction).
Review: Helen Mears, a journalist for publications such as The New Yorker, takes a trip to Japan shortly after her failed marriage. With the purpose of visiting a friend, she travels aboard a freighter full of scrap American metal being shipped to Japan to be used in the building of its war machine. And so goes the book. The book is both a primer to Japan, and a description of pre-war Japan. As such, it describes aspects of Japanese life which still have contemporary value. It also, gives insights to the Japanese mentality going into World War II and reveals the unlikehood of Japan ever having any chance of success in the war. All this written in 1942. After this book, Mears went on to write Mirror for Americans which was banned by MacArthur in occupied Japan, and, in the 1950's wrote articles against getting involved in Vietnam for less than mainstream publications.

Rating:
Summary: An American woman's 1935 trip to Japan (Nonfiction).
Review: Helen Mears, a journalist for publications such as The New Yorker, takes a trip to Japan shortly after her failed marriage. With the purpose of visiting a friend, she travels aboard a freighter full of scrap American metal being shipped to Japan to be used in the building of its war machine. And so goes the book. The book is both a primer to Japan, and a description of pre-war Japan. As such, it describes aspects of Japanese life which still have contemporary value. It also, gives insights to the Japanese mentality going into World War II and reveals the unlikehood of Japan ever having any chance of success in the war. All this written in 1942. After this book, Mears went on to write Mirror for Americans which was banned by MacArthur in occupied Japan, and, in the 1950's wrote articles against getting involved in Vietnam for less than mainstream publications.