'Tessa Morris-Suzuki incisively explains why democracy is so difficult. For two centuries, many Japanese individuals have produced an impressive array of visionary, cosmopolitan, compassionate, and useful institutions that improve the lives of their neighbors - both body and soul - at the local level - surely the beginning of the answer, she argues.' Laura Hein, Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of History, Northwestern University

'From White Birch Teachers, Peasant Art and Free University, to craft and health cooperatives, Morris-Suzuki powerfully exposes the Japanese multitude's transnational past from the ground up and in transwar perspective. This history of symbiotic everyday networks that countered capitalist modernity reveals a new past that could change and challenge old future imaginations of the Anthropocene, democracy and climate change.' Sho Konishi, University of Oxford

'Morris-Suzuki reminds us that the transnational history of Japan involves more than the circulation of ideas and practices at the level of nation-states. In this engaging account of translocal connections, we witness the formation of 'new villages' and other communities that championed autonomous politics outside the state and in dialogue with like-minded groups around the world.' Sheldon Garon, Princeton University