Paul Rusch first traveled from Louisville, Kentucky, to Tokyo in 1925
to help rebuild YMCA facilities in the wake of the Great Kanto
earthquake. What was planned as a yearlong stay became his life's work
as he joined with the Japan Episcopal Church to promote democracy and
Western Christian ideals. Over the course of his remarkable life,
Rusch served as a college professor and Episcopal missionary, and he
was a catalyst for agricultural development, introducing dairy farming
to highland Japan.
In _Paul Rusch in Postwar Japan_, Andrew T. McDonald and Verlaine
Stoner McDonald present Rusch's life as an epic story that
crisscrosses two cultures, traversing war and peace, destruction and
rebirth, private struggle and public triumph. As World War II
approached, Rusch battled racial prejudice against Japanese Americans,
yet also became an apologist for Japan's expansionist foreign policy.
After Pearl Harbor, he was arrested as an enemy alien and witnessed
the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. Upon his release to the US in 1942, he
joined military intelligence and returned to Japan in that capacity
during the US occupation.
Though Rusch was of modest origins, he deftly climbed social and
military ladders to befriend some of the most intriguing figures of
the era, including prime ministers and members of the Japanese royal
family. Though he is perhaps best remembered for introducing organized
American football in Japan, his greatest legacy is the founding of the
Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project (KEEP), a vehicle for feeding,
educating, and uplifting the rural poor of highland Japan. Today his
legacy continues to inspire KEEP in the twenty-first century to
promote peace, cultural exchange, environmental sustainability, and
ecological preservation in Japan and beyond.
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Evangelism, Rural Development, and the Battle against Communism
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780813176093
Publisert
2018
Utgiver
Vendor
The University Press of Kentucky
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok