The thesis examines the role of the Japanese police during the American Occupation of Japan (1945-52), highlighting the problems that attended reform of this key institution. It contends that there was tension between the commitment to democratise the police on the one hand and the decision to engage in an indirect Occupation on the other. Emphasis on the ambivalence of US policy, mirrored by divisions within GHQ, SCAP, helps to explain the discrepancy between the professed aims of police reform and its actual results. Parallels are drawn between the prewar/wartime police and its postwar counterpart, particularly with regard to the range of duties undertaken and the attitude of the police towards ordinary Japanese. Historical legacies stretching back to the beginning of the Meiji period and beyond are juxtaposed with the ideas of American reformers, determined to circumscribe the role of the police and to dissolve its ties with the Japanese establishment. Both aims were difficult to achieve, it is argued, amidst widespread socio-economic dislocation, typified by a thriving black market. Elucidation of the symbiotic relationship between prominent black marketeers and the police points up the latter's financial problems. It is suggested that these were compounded by decentralisation of the police system in 1948. Drawing on the memoranda, letters and reports of reformers in Tokyo and administrators in the field, the thesis concludes that the Japanese police resisted reform, taking strength from deeply-rooted traditions and benefiting from the Occupation's decision to opt for indirect rule. The police institution was too important an agency to be overhauled in the first two years of the Occupation, and when structural reorganisation was finally pushed through in 1948 it was sabotaged by the Japanese government. In sum, this study sheds light on the limitations of the Occupation, the durability of traditional forms and institutions and the basic continuity between the prewar and postwar periods.

This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part studies the reputation of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, in the Burgundian Low Countries from c. 1450 to 1471 as far as it can be gleaned from literary, non-archival sources. Warwick's decision to support the Lancastrian claim to the throne again in 1469, his military alliance with Louis XI of France and his seizure of power in England in 1470 made him a dangerous and fascinating figure to the subjects of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. The Anglo-French alliance that he embodied threatened the very existence of the Burgundian 'state', and particularly in the Low Countries Warwick's name was intensely feared and hated. Burgundian authors voiced this hatred each in their own way, both in prose and verse, until his death took away their fear as suddenly as it had struck. The foibles of various chroniclers are revealed by their image of the English earl, but it is interesting to see that general national or 'racial' prejudices against the English played little part in their judgment. The many poems about Warwick written at the time, both popular and 'courtly', present an interesting sample of such 'cycles' of political verse, which were not unusual at the time, triggered by events that stirred people's positive and negative emotions. In this case the poems show what, on the one hand, ordinary, literate people and, on the other, the nobility at the ducal court thought about the earl and the spectre of war and destruction that he released. The poems, too, suggest that in the Low Countries there was not much national or racial prejudice against the English. The second part of this thesis attempts to evaluate the sources and method used by Jean de Wavrin in his 'Collection of Histories of England', and at the same time establish what his feelings - and those of his friends and relations - were about England and the English. In his work, too, there is little sign of prejudice, but more importantly Wavrin's history of England is particularly interesting because of his access to otherwise unknown contemporary sources and it deserves closer study than the preliminary researches presented here. It is hoped that, at the least, the value of and the need for further and fuller analysis of all his sources and the way he used them become evident in this study. The general preliminary conclusion of this very partial study of the literary background and propaganda of Anglo-Burgundian relations in the Yorkist period is that there was much interest in English affairs at the Burgundian court and in the Low Countries, but little prejudice against the English people. Warwick was feared and hated, but not because he was an Englishman; Wavrin was interested in England, but his priority was the recording of deeds of chivalry, whatever the nationality of its exponents, for the entertainment of his peers.

This is a study of the expansion, retention and exercise of the territorial, political and military power of the premier earldom of England in the most crucial century of its history. The history of the Earls of Shrewsbury has been approached in four parts, the first two covering the genealogical and-political history of the family, the second exploring aspects of the material bases of its power. The study begins with a survey of the position of Ankaret, Lady Talbot, widow of the fourth Lord, over the turn of the century and the baptism of her elder sons in war in Wales. It carries through the history of her family until the succession of her second son, John, to the combined inheritances of Talbot, Le Strange and Furnival in 1422. The second chapter traces the fortune of this inheritance under John, concentrating particularly on the two great disputes, one with Lord Berkeley over the possession of the barony of Berkeley, and the other with his own heir over the partition of the inheritance, in which he involved his family. The third chapter considers the fortunes of the second and third Earls in the Wars of the Roses. It is argued in this that John, second Earl of Shrewsbury is to be numbered among the moderate Lancastrians in the years 1453-60 and that Edward IV, with eventual success, took advantage of long minorities during his reign to reconcile the Talbots to his regime. The second part is devoted to the career of the principal founder of the family fortunes, John, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. In one chapter the intervention of him and his brother Richard, Archbishop of Dublin, in the affairs of Ireland is described and in a second his long war career in France, which ended after thirty-three years on the field of Castillon, is traced and the legend that grow up around his name is assessed. The third and fourth parts look beyond the surface of genealogical and political history to examine the foundations of. the family's power and influence in its estates and affinity in the time of the first Earl. One chapter considers the composition of the first Earl's following and the influence maintained through it, particularly in Shropshire, in spite of his continued absence abroad. A second examines the composition of his retinues of war in Normandy and reveals that there were only very loose connections between these and his English following. And a third reconstructs the administration of the Talbot estates in his time, examines his finances and finally assesses his profits of war. The fourth and last part is a detailed study of the economic history of the largest of the Talbot estates in Shropshire, the lordship of Blackmere or Blackmere over the whole of the later middle ages

The economic impact of large influxes of population is a complex topic. This research contributes to this field by examining one of the most significant, but least researched, examples of postwar migration – the repatriation of more than six million (including three million civilians and demobilised soldiers each) to Japan after the Second World War. One pervasive image of Japanese civilian repatriates is that of the immigrant farmer of Manchuria who settled as a part of Japan’s Manchurian policies and had difficult repatriation experiences under the hostility of local people. However, many returned from other regions as well, including Korea and Sakhalin, and repatriates consisted of not only farmers but also colonial government officials, employees of public and private corporations, and small business owners, amongst others. This paper specifically focuses on civilian repatriates in selected prefectures (Ibaraki, Hiroshima, Kanagawa and Osaka) in 1956 and their occupational changes during the time of economic transition. Whilst it is evident that for many repatriates the postwar transition was not entirely smooth, the data presented in this research suggests that in contrast to prevailing notions, repatriates’ postwar resettlement was facilitated by a) employment in family farming and the tertiary sector, b) employment at government agencies or c) the transferability of repatriates’ skills in industry and retail and services. The information from the 1956 government survey into repatriates’ postwar lives shows that approximately 60 per cent of repatriates fell in these categories, while the other 40 per cent found employment in new areas or became unemployed. As a result, despite the scale of the repatriation, the settlement was broadly successful. It can be argued that this type of transition helped to bring political and economic stability, which became a foundation of Japan’s postwar growth.

This dissertation investigates how different stakeholders have competed over the interpretation and commemoration of the Aum Affair. The Aum Affair was a series of crimes committed by new religious movement Aum Shinrikyō between 1988 and 1995, which culminated in the gassing of the Tokyo subway system using sarin in March 1995. The Tokyo attack was the largest act of terrorism in post-war Japan. I combine qualitative methods of media analysis, interviews, and participant observation to analyse how different stakeholders have narrated and commemorated the Aum Affair. I propose ‘collective trauma’ as a revised theory of ‘cultural trauma’ to describe an event which is represented as harmful and indelible to collective memory and identity. In contrast to ‘cultural trauma’, which stresses the importance of symbolic representations of traumatic events, ‘collective trauma’ considers other ‘material’ processes – such as establishing facts, collective action, state responses, and litigation – which also contribute to trauma construction. My overarching argument is that various stakeholders – including state authorities, mass media, public intellectuals, victims, and former Aum believers – have constructed the Aum Affair as a collective trauma in multiple and conflicting ways. Many media representations situated Aum as an evil ‘cult’ which ‘brainwashed’ believers and intended to take over Japan through terror. State authorities also responded by treating Aum as a dangerous terrorist group. In some instances, these binary representations of Japan locked in a struggle against an evil force led to municipal governments violating the civil rights of Aum believers. Some individuals such as public intellectuals and former believers have challenged this divisive view by treating Aum as a ‘religion’, not a ‘cult’, and locating the root causes of Aum’s growth in Japanese society. Additionally, victims and former members have pursued divergent goals such as retributive justice, financial reparations, and social reconciliation through their public actions. A key conclusion of this dissertation is that whilst confronting horrific acts of violence may require social construction of collective trauma using cultural codes of good and evil, the entrenchment of these symbolic categories can result in lasting social tension and division.