The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations in 2015, and vigorous efforts to implement them have been rapidly increasing even in Japan. This book is a collection of articles taken from the first “Japan’s SDGs White Paper” edited by the xSDG Laboratory of the Keio Research Institute at SFC in Keio University in 2019 and translated into English. The activities of various stakeholders, including the Japanese national government, municipal governments, academic institutions, businesses, civic organizations such as NPOs, young people and the media, are reported by experts in their respective fields. It also summarizes the history of the SDGs and explains the issues and prospects in Japan. This is the perfect book to learn about initiatives in Japan towards achieving the SDGs, where people in all fields work together to change the world. この本は、2019年に慶應義塾大学 SFC研究所 xSDG・ラボの編集により発行された、「SDGs白書2019」の記事を抜粋し、英訳したものです

Yoshida Shigeru is widely regarded as a pivotal figure in early postwar Japanese history―someone who guided the nation through those difficult years with a clear vision and a firm hand. Yet much of his success, this book argues, was mandated by circumstances, and he was more a practical politician than an ideologue wedded to any particular “ism”. Particularly lauded by Yoshida admirers are his adroit fending off of pressures to remilitarize, including during the Korean War years, and his accompanying focus on economic recovery as the nation struggled to get back on its feet. Yet the decision not to rearm had already been made in the postwar Constitution’s Article 9, and Yoshida was more affirming Occupation policy than breaking new ground. Indeed, his policy pronouncements in this area largely channeled MacArthur’s thinking throughout SCAP’s reign. Pushing that thought one step further, Ambassador Okazaki contends that the acceptance of Article 9 was part of a grand bargain with MacArthur: Japan would forsake rearmament and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East would not put the Emperor in the dock for war crimes. Taking issue with the conventional wisdom, Okazaki further maintains that many Occupation policies (e.g., women’s suffrage and agrarian reform) would have been adopted in the course of building upon prewar democratization initiatives even were there no Occupation. Significantly, these reforms, unlike zaibatsu dissolution and the purge, for example, were not rescinded once Japan regained its independence in 1952. Pulling together testimony from a wide variety of informed sources, this solidly argued treatise roundly rejects the Tokyo Trials, both their conduct and their verdicts, and paints a picture of Japan laboring under a capricious autocracy in the Occupation years. This is an insightful work that demands serious consideration by everyone interested in Japan past, present, and future.