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''The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture'' is an influential 1946 study of Japan by American anthropologist Ruth Benedict. It was written at the invitation of the U.S. Office of War Information, in order to understand and predict the behavior of the Japanese in World War II by reference to a series of contradictions in traditional culture. The book was influential in shaping American ideas about Japanese culture during the occupation of Japan, and popularized the distinction between guilt cultures and shame cultures.〔Ezra F. Vogel, Foreword, ''The Chrysanthemum and the Sword'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1989)〕 Although it has received harsh criticism, the book has continued to be influential. Two anthropologists wrote in 1992 that there is "a sense in which all of us have been writing footnotes to () since it appeared in 1946".〔() Plath, David W., and Robert J. Smith, "How 'American' Are Studies of Modern Japan Done in the United States", in Harumi Befu and Joseph Kreiner, eds., ''Otherness of Japan: Historical and Cultural Influences on Japanese Studies in Ten Countries'', Munchen: The German Institute of Japanese Studies, as quoted in Ryang, Sonia, "''Chrysanthemum's'' Strange Life: Ruth Benedict in Postwar Japan", accessed January 13, 2007〕 The Japanese, Benedict wrote, are both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways...〔Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, page 2, 1946〕 The book also affected Japanese conceptions of themselves.〔Kent, Pauline, "Japanese Perceptions of the Chrysanthemum and the Sword," ''Dialectical Anthropology'' 24.2 (1999): 181.〕 The book was translated into Japanese in 1948 and became a bestseller in the People's Republic of China when relations with Japan soured.〔Fujino, Akira, Tribune News Service, 'Book on Japanese culture proves a bestseller in China", ''The Advocate'' of Stamford, Connecticut, January 8, 2006〕 ==Research circumstances== This book which resulted from Benedict's wartime research, like several other OWI wartime studies of Japan and Germany,〔Robert Harry Lowie, ''The German People: A Social Portrait to 1914'' (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945); John F. Embree, ''The Japanese Nation: A Social Survey'' (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945〕 is an instance of "culture at a distance," that is, study of a culture through its literature, newspaper clippings, films and recordings, and extensive interviews with German-Americans or Japanese-Americans. These techniques were necessitated by anthropologists' inability to visit Nazi Germany or wartime Japan. As one later ethnographer pointed out, however, although "culture at a distance" had the "elaborate aura of a good academic fad, the method was not so different from what any good historian does: to make the most creative use possible of written documents."〔Vogel, Foreword, p. x.〕 These anthropologists were attempting to understand the cultural patterns that might be driving the aggression of once friendly nations, and hoped to find possible weaknesses or means of persuasion that had been missed. Americans found themselves unable to comprehend matters in Japanese culture. For instance, Americans considered it quite natural for American prisoners of war to ''want'' their families to know they were alive, and to keep quiet when asked for information about troop movements, etc., while Japanese POWs, apparently, gave information freely and did not try to contact their families. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Chrysanthemum and the Sword」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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