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Classic
Book That Provided First Look Into Japanese Culture
Following WWII Republished on its 50th Anniversary
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Profiled Were a Journalist, an Ex-Navy Vice-Admiral, A
Steel Worker, a Farmer and Emperor Hirohito
 Published
in 1953, Five Gentlemen of Japan: The Portrait of a
Nation's Character provided a nation with insights into
a country and culture that had recently been a mysterious
and deadly enemy. Written by Frank Gibney, a former U.S.
Navy intelligence officer and now professor of history and
president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College,
the classic was reprinted by D'Asia Vu Reprint Library, in
December 2003, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.
Five Gentlemen was the book that "began to inform an
entire generation about what had been to many an inscrutable
Japan," says Richard Halloran, a former New York Times
correspondent in Asia. "Over the years, a few books have
equaled it, but none has surpassed it." "Many people
remember [the book] as their first introduction to Asia and
Japanese society."
"Really a series of snapshots taken at a particular time in
history, the book...was extraordinary because it was the
really first to describe the Japanese in Japan during and
after the war and what they were dealing with," says Gibney.
"It was one of the first three or four books about Japan and
the Japanese to come out after the war."
The account of "the makers of New Japan" tells the life
stories of a journalist, an ex-Navy vice-admiral, a steel
worker, a farmer and Emperor Hirohito. In the late 1940s and
early 1950s, Japan was a poor, broken and troubled society.
Many in both Japan and the West assumed that it would always
be so. "But Gibney, who was a wartime intelligence officer
and later journalist based in Asia, reported on Japan in
such telling detail that readers can see in this book both
the now forgotten atmosphere of that time and the basis for
the 'Japanese miracle' to follow," explains the publisher.
"He reported what it was really like at the time, how places
looked, how people felt, what they knew and what they did
not."
The author says he hasn't changed his mind about Japan in
the intervening years. "Japan remains a very closely knit
society of mutual responsibilities, obligations and
associations," says Gibney. He does accede however, that "it
might have been a bit more measured if I hadn't been 27 at
the time."
Five Gentlemen of Japan is one of D'Asia Vu's first
three books "partly because it was written so shortly after
the war and because so few people knew anything about Japan,
while he knew so much, says Douglas Merwin, founder of
EastBridge Press (home of D'Asia VU). "The other remarkable
thing about the book is that it has held up so well over
time."
The goal of the D'Asia Vu Reprint Library is to republish
classic books about Asia so that readers can "critically
appreciate the range of views and how those views changed
over time," explains Merwin. "We put a special focus on
books that are effective in the classroom, books that make
their many Asias vivid and personal."
Following Five Gentlemen of Japan, Gibney wrote
eleven more books, including Korea's Quiet Revolution
(1992), The Pacific Century (1992), and Japan: The
Fragile Superpower (1975, 3rd ed., 1996). His
edited books include Senso: The Japanese Remember the
Pacific War (Sharpe, 1995) and, with Col. Hiromichi
Yahara, The Battle for Okinawa (1995).
Gibney graduated from the U.S. Navy Japanese Language School
and served during World War II as an intelligence officer in
the Pacific theater and later in occupied Japan. He left the
Navy in 1946 and became a Time magazine correspondent during
the American Occupation of Japan. He first came to
prominence reporting the Korean War in 1950, when he was
Tokyo Bureau Chief for Time. He later edited at Time,
Newsweek, and Life, before becoming publisher of
Show in 1961. After joining the Encyclopedia
Britannica in 1966, he spent ten years in charge of
Britannica's business and editorial operations in East Asia.
Since 1988 he has been an officer or director of the U.S.
Pacific Economic Cooperation Committee.
Over the years, Gibney became a major interpreter of Japan
to Americans and America to Japanese, known as a
knowledgeable, genial presence in the PBS series "Pacific
Century."
In 1979, he established the Pacific Basin Institute in Santa
Barbara, California, which has served as a bridge between
the United States and East and Southeast Asia for more than
20 years, sponsoring numerous interdisciplinary conferences,
workshops and study groups that explore aspects of the
growing Pacific community. In 1997, Gibney and PBI moved to
Pomona, where the Institute and its unique Asia/Pacific film
archive and production facilities play an integral role in
the life and academic activities of the college. (More
information on the Pacific Basin Institute and its events
can be found at http://www.pomona.edu/pbi/.)
CONTACTS:
Frank Gibney
President
The Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College
(909) 607-7467
Email: fgibney@silcom.com
Douglas Merwin
Publisher, EastBridge Press
(914) 592-8718
Email: dmasia@BestWeb.net
www.EastbridgeBooks.org
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