In Thought Crime Max M. Ward explores the Japanese state's efforts to suppress political radicalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Ward traces the evolution of an antiradical law called the Peace Preservation Law, from its initial application to suppress communism and anticolonial nationalism—what authorities deemed thought crime—to its expansion into an elaborate system to reform and ideologically convert thousands of thought criminals throughout the Japanese Empire. To enforce the law, the government enlisted a number of nonstate actors, who included monks, family members, and community leaders. Throughout, Ward illuminates the complex processes through which the law articulated imperial ideology and how this ideology was transformed and disseminated through the law's application over its twenty-year history. In so doing, he shows how the Peace Preservation Law provides a window into understanding how modern states develop ideological apparatuses to subject their respective populations.

"[Ward] has provided his readers with a well-written account of how between 1920 and the 1930s the Japanese nation endeavored to suppress political radicalism." - African and Asian Studies

" "Thought Crime offers a lucid reflection on theories of power and the modern state while refusing to fetishize the particularities of the Japanese case."" - Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Thought Crime sets itself apart from past studies of the Peace Preservation Law by developing a theory of imperial ideology that focuses on its effects on those in proximity to it: bureaucrats, thought criminals, and those who were mobilized to rehabilitate them." - Journal of Asian Studies

"Thought Crime is a thought-provoking, intelligent, and necessary book.… It is a must-read for serious students of modern Japanese political and intellectual history." - Journal of Japanese Studies

"Rigorous and creative explorations of the multiple modalities of state power are much needed in the study of the cultural and social history of modern Japan, and in that respect Thought Crime makes an invaluable contribution to the field." - Monumenta Nipponica

"This book is nicely written and well-organized, and the author makes excellent use of Japanese-language primary sources. Overall, this is an outstanding piece of research. It makes a substantial contribution to existing works on this topic and is recommended for use in graduate seminars on modern Japanese history." - History: Reviews of New Books

"This analysis is a valuable service in increasing our knowledge of the rise of Japanese militarism and the coming of WWII in Asa.… Recommended. Graduate students through faculty." - Choice

"Thought Crime is a theoretically and archivally rich intervention into discourse surrounding tenkō and the kokutai. . . . Max Ward's incorporation of theory into the body of literature on thought crime in Japan yields an important rethinking of politics and ideology during this most fraught of historical periods." - Japan Review