Ox Against the Storm

The lifelong struggle of Japan's pioneer environmental conservationist is described with skill and passion in Kenneth Strong's absorbing biography, published now in paperback. Born in 1841, the year of the Ox, Shozo fought for the protection of the environment in a country which became a leading industrial power in less than a century, at the expense of all humanitarian and ecological considerations. The author has also presented an overall account of the way in which an intricate network of oligarchic and industrial interests dominated Japan's first democratic parliaments. The self-educated son of a peasant, pigheaded, illogical, emotional, impetuous and politically naive, Tanaka Shozo was elected to the Diet and established his place in history by waging a dogged, Pyrrhic war against the gross pollution of his constituents' food, water and land by an important copper mine. This biography - the first on Tanaka Shozo in English - is also the first detailed study of how the letter and spirit of Japan's 1889 constitution was applied outside Tokyo. Called in his own time an unrealistic madman for fighting a battle today's world generally takes far more seriously, Tanaka Shozo is likened by Kenneth Strong to such great humanitarians as Mahatma Gandhi and Danilo Dolci.