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Chapter XII
The Dawn of a New Age
The one thing that can be safely said about the period since August 14, 1945, is that it is the beginning of a new age for Japan. The coming of Perry to Japan in 1853 resulted in profound changes in Japanese life. The much more dramatic coming of General MacArthur to Japan in 1945 may bring equally profound changes. Crushing military defeat, the disruption of normal life caused by eight years of war and the devastation of most of the larger cities of Japan, the crippling of Japanese economy, first by bombs and then by the loss of her colonies, the presence of an army of occupation, the enforced abandonment of militarism and many other major features of the Japanese system, and most of all, the realization that Japan is not a divine land protected by the gods and that the Japanese are not a race of supermen—these factors are having and will continue to have a tremendous impact upon the Japanese people. Inevitably they will produce a new and different Japan. But what this new Japan will be, no one can predict with certainty.
