Bad Youth: Juvenile Delinquency and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Japan (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

The first in-depth study of the political, social, and cultural history of juvenile delinquency in modern Japan, Bad Youth treats the policing of urban youth as a crucial site for the development of new state structures and new forms of social power. Focusing on the years of rapid industrialization and imperialist expansion (1895 to 1945), David R. Ambaras challenges widely held conceptions of a Japan that did not, until recently, experience delinquency and related youth problems. He vividly reconstructs numerous individual life stories in the worlds of home, school, work, and the streets, and he relates the changes that took place during this time of social transformation to the broader processes of capitalist development, nation-state formation, and imperialism.