The Hunt for "Tokyo Rose"

By Russell Warren Howe

Book Overview

Often overlooked by Kierkegaard scholars,? On the Concept of Irony --Kierkegaard's dissertation--is in fact a foundational text that established some of Kierkegaard's most important ideas on the self. In? The Isolated Self , K. Brian Soderquist restores this important work to its proper place, offering a rare full-length study of the text that shows how and why Kierkegaard would return to the ideas he developed there throughout his entire career. ???????????? Thoroughly examining? On the Concept of Irony , Soderquist uncovers the most comprehensive account of the "double movement" that is so important in Kierkegaard's later works. Hinging on irony, the double movement describes the way existence pushes us to move from an immediate, unreflective life toward a self-developed worldview. Soderquist bores into this notion of irony, reconstructing the way it was conceived in Kierkegaard's time by analyzing its use by related thinkers such as Hegel, Friedrich Schlegel, Johan Ludvig Heiberg, Hans Lassen Martensen, and Poul Martin M?ller. Altogether Soderquist shows how Kierkegaard's concept of irony, as demonstrated in this very early work, is crucial to understanding his pivotal thoughts on selfhood.?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819174564
• ISBN13: 9780819174567
• Release Date: October 1989
• Publisher: Madison Books
• Length: 354 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.4" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

The Tokyo Rose Case, a Cautionary Note for Today

Six months ago I was traveling along the coast of Washington, when I woke up to the terrible TV scenes of fire and death and collapsing buildings. I wrote my first thoughts in my diary: "As events unfold, I worry of our response. Will internal security become Gestapo like? Will we isolate ourselves? What about our civil rights or the rights of dark guys with beards and robes?" To know what could happen, we only needed to look back to the internment of Japanese-Americans or the case of "Tokyo Rose" (Iva Toguri).If you are interested in World War II history or the excesses of patriotism, this is a book you should read and keep in your library. Mr. Howe has done a through job gathering the events and as a bonus describes the world of living in an enemy's country. I also value the picture Howe paints of life as a POW in Japan. It's nice that he has humanized some of the Japanese military, even to the point of letting us see that there were good and bad on both sides. Consider, for example, the support Iva received from the fighting GI's and compare it to the pettiness of the (mostly) non-combatant government agents.Howe's writing style could have been more readable and there were a few errors of fact. (p. 244 Doolittle's first raid was in 1942 and not two years later.) These did not detract excessively.Our challenge today as Americans is to avoid another case of "Tokyo Rose".