Machiavelli's Children : Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan

Two late-developing nations, Japan and Italy, similarly obsessed with achieving modernity and with joining the ranks of the great powers, have traveled parallel courses with very different national identities. In this audacious book about leadership and historical choices, Richard J. Samuels emphasizes the role of human ingenuity in political change. He draws on interviews and archival research in a fascinating series of paired biographies of political and business leaders from Italy and Japan. Beginning with the founding of modern nation-states after the Meiji Restoration and the Risorgimento, Samuels traces the developmental dynamic in both countries through the failure of early liberalism, the coming of fascism, imperial adventures, defeat in wartime, and reconstruction as American allies. Highlights of Machiavelli's Children include new accounts of the making of postwar Japanese politics -- using American money and Manchukuo connections -- and of the collapse of Italian political parties in the Clean Hands (Mani Pulite) scandal. The author also tells the more recent stories of Umberto Bossi's regional experiment, the Lega Nord, the different choices made by Italian and Japanese communist party leaders after the collapse of the USSR, and the leadership of Silvio Berlusconi and Ishihara Shintaro on the contemporary right in each country. "In this book about leadership and historical choices, Richard J. Samuels emphasizes the role of human ingenuity in political change. He draws on interviews and archival research in a fascinating series of paired biographies of political and business leaders from Italy and Japan.". "Beginning with the founding of modern nation-states after the Meiji Restoration and the Risorgimento, Samuels traces the developmental dynamic in both countries through the failure of early liberalism, the coming of fascism, imperial adventures, defeat in wartime, and reconstruction as American allies. Highlights of Machiavelli's Children include new accounts of the making of postwar Japanese politics - using American money and Manchukuo connections - and of the collapse of Italian political parties in the Clean Hands (Mani Pulite) scandal. The author also tells the more recent stories of Umberto Bossi's regional experiment, the Lega Nord, the different choices made by Italian and Japanese communist party leaders after the collapse of the USSR, and the leadership of Silvio Berlusconi and Ishihara Shintaro on the contemporary right in each country."--BOOK JACKET. Contents Preface: Leaders Matter Introduction: Why Leaders Matter Part I. Creation Stories: The Nineteenth Century 1. Chasing Prestige and Security 2. How to Build a State: Count Cavour, Itö Hirobumi, and Yamagata Aritomo 3. How to Build Wealth: Alessandro Rossi, Ökubo Toshimichi, and Shibusawa Eichi Part II. Liberal Exhaustion: The Early Twentieth Century 4. The Death of Liberalism: Giovanni Giolitti and Hara Kei 5. The Birth of Corporatism: Muto Sanji, Alessandro Rossi, Kishi Nobusuke, Giovanni Agnelli, and Ayukawa Gisuke 6. The Total Leader: Benito Mussolini Part III. In the American Imperium: The Cold War 7. Chasing Democracy 8. What Kind of Ally to Be: Alcide De Gasperi and Yoshida Shigeru 9. Putting Corruption in Its Place: Kishi Nobusuke and Amintore Fanfani Part IV. Degrees of Freedom: After the Cold War 10. Chasing Normality 11. Choices on the Left: Achille Occhetto and Fuwa Tetsuzö 12. Options on the Right: Umberto Bossi, Silvio Berlusconi, Ozawa Ichiro, and Ishihara Shin taro Conclusion: How Leaders Have Mattered in Italy and Japan Notes References Index