Douglas Lummis

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C. Douglas Lummis is a writer, former professor at Tsuda College in Tokyo [1] and former U.S. Marine. [2]

Contents

Life

Lummis was born in 1936 in San Francisco. He attended UC Berkeley on a Navy ROTC contract, and later did three years active duty in the Marines - the last year in Okinawa. [3] He retired from teaching at Tsuda College in 2000. [3]

Lummis' writings - many of which concern Japan's relationship to the United States - are extremely critical of US foreign policy. [2] [4] His works include the books Radical Democracy, A New Look at The Chrysanthemum and the Sword and Japan's Radical Constitution. [3] He has also published numerous pieces in journals such as The Nation [5] and Japan Focus. [2]

Critical reception

Susan Sontag has called Lummis "one of the most thoughtful, honorable, and relevant intellectuals writing about democratic practice anywhere in the world," [3] while Karel van Wolferen has referred to him as an "eminent observer of the American-Japanese vassalage relationship." [4]

Lummis' ideas have been criticized by Francis Fukuyama and others in Foreign Affairs and other journals. [6]

Bibliography

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References

  1. Sung-won Suh. Book Review Global Asia: A Journal of the East Asia Foundation, Fall, 2010
  2. 1 2 3 Japan Focus: Douglas Lummis japanfocus.org
  3. 1 2 3 4 Radical Democracy book ecobooks.com
  4. 1 2 Karel van Wolferen. "The most monstrous lie of the twenty-first century" karelvanwolferen.com, jottings, articles, books, 19 Sep. 2011
  5. Author Bios: C. Douglas Lummis thenation.com
  6. Francis Fukuyama. "Radical Democracy, C. Douglas Lummis" Foreign Affairs, September/October, 1996