黑料福利社

This book is a collection of papers published to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Historical Science Society of Japan (Rekishigaku Kenkyukai) established in 1932 and the inauguration of its Journal of Historical Studies (Rekishigaku Kenkyu) in 1933. It comprises eight papers presented at the commemorative symposium held on December 18, 2022, interspersed with five columns written by the leaders of each of the Society’s subgroups. This book explores the early years of the Society and its Journal within the academic and social context of the 1930s—a period marked by the rise of diverse historical perspectives and the emergence of a new generation of scholars.
 
The “Arena” in the title is used in its original meaning of a circular amphitheater full of spectators, but also signifies a space where one witnesses the “actuality of historiography”—a dynamic state that emerges only through the intersection of an objective social climate and the historian’s practical engagement. Likewise, the “Prewar Historiography” in the title is a counterpoint to “postwar historiography,” a term that has been used by the Society and in its Journal to generally refer to three interpretations of history that are: (1) systematically centered on stages of development and class struggles, (2) driven by the pursuit of democratic and nationalist revolutions, or (3) rooted in the underlying principles of popular history, social history, and nation-state theories. Working from these perspectives on “postwar historiography,” this book explores the nature of “prewar historiography”—unconsciously accepted as the polar opposite of postwar historiography—by focusing on the papers published in the Society’s Journal and on the people who sustained the Society during the period in question.
 
The following are brief descriptions of the contents of each chapter. The first chapter, written by Yoko Kato, examines the Historical Science Society of Japan in the 1930s, a period marking a turning point in the modern Emperor system. She focuses on Goro Hani, who asserted that “precise criticism and righteous introduction” are essential in the study of history. In the second chapter, Fuminori Inoue paints a portrait of Ichisada Miyazaki and his approach to world history. Miyazaki distanced himself from the philosophies of history, historical materialism, and cultural histories that were popular in his time, choosing to focus instead on the importance of West Asia. By this time, the Society had expanded into a nationwide organization, to the point where historians who did not belong to it were the exception rather than the rule. Yuki Sato discusses in Chapter 3 the Society’s character as a collective of specialists and expands on the historiographical importance of the Society’s Journal. In Chapter 4, Satoshi Baba clarifies the process by which socio-economic history developed around 1930 in Japan and overseas, juxtaposing it with the founding in Japan of the Socio-Economic History Society.
 
Chapter 5, by Shigenori Kojima, is the first full-scale study of the research and achievements of some of the leading figures in the founding of the Society, including those who graduated from the Department of Oriental History, Faculty of Letters, Tokyo Imperial University, such as Hajime Mishima, Fudomaro Shida, Shun Suzuki, and Shiro Nohara. In Chapter 6, Nobuyuki Konno explores the back-and-forth that took place between the Society and Kiyoshi Hiraizumi through a careful reading of the Journal contents published at the time. While the Journal frequently criticized Hiraizumi in its editorial postscripts, it also highly evaluated Hiraizumi’s empirical research conducted during the Taisho era (1912-1926). In Chapter 7, Hazuki Tate chooses to examine the trends in the French historical community around the time of the Society’s founding through the lens of Lucien Febvre, known for his polemical writing style, rather than approaching an understanding of the Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (Annales) through Marc Bloch who is more familiar to Japanese scholars. In Chapter 8, Ryosuke Maeda argues that in the 1930s, the Society’s Journal was a Mecca for studies of contemporary diplomatic history focusing on the recent past.
 

(Written by KATO Yoko, Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2026)