Arthur Stockwin, as much as any Westerner living, made the Japanese Left a compelling concern for the political scientist and historian alike. This Oxford Festschrift seeks to honour him with a set of essays that reach beyond all previous studies of this great movement. Part I focuses on left-wing thought. Christopher Goto-Jones probes the texts and reputations of two left-wing ?martyrs? of Imperial Japan: Jun Tosaka and Kiyoshi Miki; Rikki Kersten retraces the career of Hisashi Aso, the leftist leader who controversially embraced the army as an agency of anti-capitalist revolution; and David Williams mobilizes Hobbes, Carl Schmitt and Foucault to dissect the Left?s understanding of constitutional sovereignty. Part II addresses the post-war scene. Robert Aspinall examines the rise and fall of Nikkyo-so, the militant teachers? union; Koichi Nakano reveals the Left?s impact on conservative efforts to privatize the state sector; and Sarah Hyde recounts the strange but sudden death of parliamentary socialism. In Part III, ?Settling Accounts?, Leonard J.
Schoppa highlights the embrace of the free market by former leftist politicians; Williams returns the study of the Japanese Left to its critical roots via a post 9/11 critique of American Empire; and Junji Banno offers a passionate ?last judgment? on the fate of the Left in Japanese politics.