The historical significance of the japanese textbook lawsuit

Abstract

In 1960, Ienaga Saburō, Professor of Japanese History at Tokyo University of Education and the author of many books on Japanese history, began a long series of court actions to have the Ministry of Education's system of certifying all textbooks used in Japanese schools declared unconstitutional. In the following essay, written exclusively for the Bulletin Professor Ienaga provides an historical background to government control of education in Japan and reviews his long struggle against government censorship of books used in Japan's schools.