Masao Maruyama (scholar)
| Masao Maruyama | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1914 Osaka |
| Died | 15 August 1996 (aged 81–82) Tokyo |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Alma mater | Tokyo Imperial University |
Masao Maruyama (丸山 眞男 Maruyama Masao?, 1914 - 15 August 1996) was a leading Japanese political scientist and political theorist. His expertise lay in the history of Japanese political thought, to which he made major contributions.
Maruyama Masao was born in Osaka in 1914. He was the second son of journalist Maruyama Kanji. He was influenced by friends of his father such as Hasegawa Nyozekan, a circle of people identified with the liberal current of political thought during the period of Taishō democracy. After graduating from Tokyo Furitsu Number One Middle School (currently known as Tokyo Municipal Hibiya High School), he entered the Tokyo Imperial University and graduated from the Department of Law in 1937. His thesis "The Concept of the Nation-state in Political Science" earned a Distinguished Thesis Award, and Maruyama was appointed assistant in the same department.
Originally he had wanted to specialize in European political thought, but changed his focus to concentrate on Japanese political thought, a subject that until that time, mainly centered around the concept of an imperial state, and was influenced by a foundational ordinance that required subjects to be taught 'in accordance with the needs of the state'. Maruyama brought to the discipline a theoretical perspective grounded in extensive comparativism. The person who originally recommended this path to him was his mentor, Professor Nambara Shigeru, who was highly critical of military and bureaucratic obstructions to the growth of a constitutionally defined 'national community'. An expert in European political thought, Nambara steered the young Maruyama into working on this topics.
In March 1945, Maruyama was drafted and stationed in the Army at Hiroshima. After experiencing the blast at Hiroshima and seeing out the end of the war there, he returned to his post at the university in September. He caught tuberculosis at the time, and after an operation, spent the rest of his life on one lung.
...
Wikipedia