“Emily Cole tells a cheering story of resilience when amateur Japanese photographers ventured to envision their country afresh after the devastation of World War II. Photographic Encounters in Postwar Japan describes a particular manifestation of the global enthusiasm for the camera, adding to our understanding of popular culture.”

Julia Adeney Thomas, University of Notre Dame, USA

“As Emily Cole shows here, photographers were everywhere in postwar Japan: professional and amateur, Japanese and foreign. Defeat in war meant that most people craved new narratives of social identity, and photography was a key medium in which they developed them. Photography magazines created a generous, although strikingly misogynist, space for a growing number of amateurs to encounter each other's work as well as that of famous global photographers, and to comment on social change, nature, and the human spirit, in ways that re-imagined the Japanese nation as cosmopolitan, cultured, peaceful, and distinctive.”

Laura Hein, Northwestern University, USA