1923 Toyko as a Devastated War and Occupation Zone: The Catastrophe One Confronted in Post Earthquake Japan

Abstract

This article documents how Japan's governing elites confronted the enormous tasks of restoring order over the disaster area of the Great Kantō Earthquake and providing relief and recovery assistance to approximately two million people. It also explores how and why numerous commentators evoked the imagery of war in constructing the 1923 catastrophe. They employed comparisons to war not only to describe the totality of destruction meted out by the earthquake and fires, but also to communicate the commitment that they believed the people of Japan would have to make to expedite recovery, rebuild the capital, and reconstruct the nation. Such an effort, many concluded, would require the mobilized efforts of all Japanese.