In this book, Stolz tells the story of three Japanese who in differing ways set out to challenge Japanese capitalism while seeking a new relationship with nature. In doing so, he relates their works and their thought to events and currents in Japan in the context of Marxist ideas about the subsumption of nature by capital. He provides many fresh insights, even when covering those parts of the story that are already familiar. His interpretations are cogent and clearly argued.
Stolz starts with the basic premise that the liberal ideology of Meiji Japan was inherently problematical in its rupture of the human subject from nature, leading inevitably to the severe cases of environmental disaster that have occurred in Japan throughout its modern history. At several points, Stolz eschews the view of a naturalized past based on a radical ecology. The advent of the Meiji era, he writes, in no way...