Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- Roots -- How Not to Be Seen: The Hidden Statuary of Emperor Meiji -- Beginnings: Statues of Imperial Figures -- Patterns of Social Behavior and Participation -- A Quantitative Analysis of Public Statuary in Modern Japan -- A Typology of Public Statuary in Modern Japan -- Mobilizing Japan's "Men in Metal" in the Asia-Pacifi c War -- Colonial Statues and Their Legacy -- The Resurgence of Public Statuary in Postwar Japan -- Public Statuary since the 1960s -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

In his pioneering study, Men in Metal , Sven Saaler examines Japanese public statuary as a central site of historical memory from its beginnings in the Meiji period through the twenty-first century. Saaler shows how the elites of the modern Japanese nation-state went about constructing an iconography of national heroes to serve their agenda of instilling national (and nationalist) thinking into the masses. Based on a wide range of hitherto untapped primary sources, Saaler combines data-driven quantitative analysis and in-depth case studies to identify the categories and historical figures that dominated public space. Men in Metal also explores the agents behind this visualized form of the politics of memory and introduces historiographical controversies surrounding statue-building in modern Japan.

Description based on print version record.