SIGNED REVIEW COPY, HELEN MEARS – MIRROR FOR AMERICANS 1st, Occupied Japan WWII
SIGNED by HELEN MEARS — MIRROR FOR AMERICANS — 1st Edition / 1st Printing, 1948 — HELEN MEARS’ PERSONAL COPY, Possible REVIEW COPY (Editor-Signed) — Occupied Japan, Japan Post-World War II, Japanese Post-War Culture
 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin and Co., Boston (1948)
The book was banned by General Douglas MacArthur from being published in Japan during the US Occupation after World War II. It was not until late 1995 that the book was translated into Japanese and published in Japan…. ” Japanese Surgeons Daily Life, Sept 1st 2008. Exceedingly scarce, Helen Mears’ personal review copy with detailed notes from editor and signed by Mears and her editor. In well preserved condition. The boards and binding are solid and tight, save for some rubbing on the top spine end and the top two corners, along with overall light shelfwear. Helen Mears signature on the inside board and her editor’s critique written to Mears on the first blank page, suggesting that this was her personal copy. The book has numerous pencil notations by the editor offering suggestions, with pencil-dated letter to Mears on the first blank page. Please see below for a copy of the note from the editor to Mears as written in the book; as well as more information on the book itself. A truly historically significant copy!
Copy of note from editor to Mears on the first blank page:
 “I enjoyed & profited by reading fine book. I agree with your thesis & consider it most necessary to say the things your book said – we need much more of the same.
Your (honesty) impaired your influence by anger & some bias.
More forever to you,
Sidney S_b__er 11/15/1948
Description of MIRROR FOR AMERICANSÂ
Helen Mears criticizes the justification for occupation by U.S. military forces of Japan that the Japanese were culturally a war monger people and must be controlled. She details the review US policy and abhorrent treatment of the Japanese people by the forced doctrine of “Westernization” upon the Japanese. The criticisms of the US Occupation policy and treatment of the Japanese people led The General of All US Forces, General Douglas McArthur, to institute a ban the book from being printed and distributed in Japan for fear of an rebellion. It was not until the 1980s that the book was translated and printed in japan.
Biography of Helen Mears
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Helen Mears was
a writer and journalist, especially interested in Japan and Asia. Mears first traveled to China in 1925 and ten
years later Mears spent nine months in Japan. Out of the trip to Japan she
published two books and a series of essays that appeared in The New Yorker.
Mears traveled throughout Asia, the Soviet Union, Europe, and parts of South
America. After World War II, Mears traveled again to Japan served in an official
capacity as a member of the U.S. labor advisory committee. From the 1940’s through the 1960s Mears wrote occasional articles on southeast Asia, critiquing
European and U.S. involvement there. Mears was a board member of the War
Resisters League in the 1950s and worked against the development of the H-Bomb. Helen Mears
published several books on Japan. These include: Mirror for Americans, 1948; Year of the Wild Boar: an American Woman
in Japan in 1947.Â
