Yoshio Nishina: Father of Modern Physics in Japan , Dong-Won Kim , Taylor & Francis, New York, 2007. $69.95 (195 pp.). ISBN 978-0-7503-0755-0
The history of physics in Japan might be one of the most important understudied subjects in the history of science. Japan is a major player in contemporary physics, and the transmission of modern physics into the country might provide a key to understanding the globalization of Western science. Yoshio Nishina (1890–1951) is a relatively unknown but significant Japanese physicist who was instrumental in transforming the Japanese physics community into an active, internationally competitive group. Dong-Won Kim’s Yoshio Nishina: Father of Modern Physics in Japan gives a compact account of Nishina’s life. It is successful as introductory reading for the general public, but not so much as a serious scholarly contribution to the literature.
Kim is an independent scholar who retired from the Korean Advanced Institute for Science and Technology and is now a visiting professor in the department of science and technology at the Johns Hopkins University. His book seems not to be intended as a scholarly monograph. It relies heavily on secondary literature but contains little explanation of his position on whether he agrees with the preceding works on the subject. In the introduction, Kim states that his “appreciation of [Nishina’s] greatness is based on ideas and opinions that are not necessarily those expressed in traditional Japanese scholarship, particularly in areas on how and why Nishina’s role and contributions were critical to the development of the Japanese physics community.” What he means by “traditional Japanese scholarship” baffles me. In any event, Kim overrates his own contribution if he claims novelty in discovering that Nishina’s “greatness” lies in how the scientist contributed to the development of the Japanese physics community. Nishina’s importance in this regard has been more a matter of common sense among those who have written about him ever since physicist Sin-itiro Tomonaga. Moreover, despite Kim’s critique of his Japanese colleagues, a considerable proportion of the book depends on works by Japanese scholars. His direct citation of primary sources already covered in the secondary works, however, blurs his scholarly dependence on the secondary literature. For example, section 2 of chapter 1 seems to rely totally on my own 2002 dissertation; but in most footnotes, Kim cites primary sources without mentioning they have been cited and discussed in my thesis.
Kim’s book also expresses unacceptably stereotypical views on Japanese and other East Asian cultures. Kim states, “In East Asia, such celebrated figures as Nishina traditionally are depicted as ‘perfect’ men. … Criticism of heroes, particularly great sensei, is not permitted.” But that is not the case in Japan, where even Nishina’s students did not always depict him as perfect. Soon after Nishina’s death, in a 1951 journal article devoted to him, Tomonaga likened Nishina to a mountebank entrepreneur. He recalled that when some of Nishina’s students saw an advertisement by a quack doctor for electronic treatment, they joked that it was something Nishina would do.
Kim writes that “[Nishina] was typically Japanese. He had been a model student from elementary school to university. … He had behaved exactly as the typical Japanese did when he met and dealt with senior Japanese scientists or nonscientists outside his laboratory.” Kim, however, does not explain what, exactly, “typical” means and how being typical led to Nishina’s success. Kim asks “How much did being Japanese influence Nishina’s scientific work and contribute to his success?” Such cultural essentialism, assuming “typical” Japanese behavior, should no longer appear in academic literature, especially after the intense critique of Nihonjinron, the theory of “Japaneseness,” in Japanese studies in North America.
The book’s reliance on disproportionately English-language sources further undermines its value. For example, in the discussion of the Japanese research institute, RIKEN, Kim cites Tessa Morris-Suzuki’s tertiary work in English rather than Satoshi Saito’s secondary work in Japanese, which Morris-Suzuki cites. Also in the introduction, Kim claims that theoretical physicist Hideki Yukawa and Tomonaga often called Nishina “Professor Nishina” in their memoirs even though he never was one, because the prefix of “professor” in Japanese conveys respect and authority. That misconception probably originates from Kim’s reliance on English translations, in which sensei is often mistranslated as “professor,” as in Tomonaga’s The Story of Spin (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
Even when Kim uses primary sources, he interprets them inadequately. He quotes Tomonaga’s recollection of his first encounter with Nishina: “Nishina looked far from the world-class scientist we imagined (we guessed a sharp looking figure). He looked mild and talked without any sharp remarks” (page 66). From that testimony, Kim concludes that Nishina’s treatment of students was different from that of most Japanese university professors, who, Kim claims, were traditionally arrogant. But Tomonaga was talking about the contrast between the actual Nishina and his imagined Nishina, a razor-sharp international scientist trained in Europe, not a “traditional” Japanese professor. Apparently, Kim’s projecting his preconception about Japanese professors, for which he provides no basis, has led to the misinterpretation.
With so few biographies of Japanese scientists available in English, Yoshio Nishina certainly contributes to the English-language, general interest literature on the history of non-Western science. But its contribution fails to be scholarly. I agree with Kim in hoping “that more extensive biographies of Nishina with fresh perspectives will appear in the near future.”
