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Opens with the brief speech by Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru to the lower house of the Diet that invited the Diet's examination of the government's draft revision. It sets forth the preliminary exposition of the text offered by Kanamori Tokujirō, the cabinet member charged with defending the so‐called “government draft.” It presents initial reactions by Diet members, from Kita Reikichi on the right to Morito Tatsuo and Nosaka Sanzō on the left, indicating that the debate would be lively and spirited. It shows how early skirmishing centered on kokutai (the form of the polity, heretofore based on the authority of the emperor) and the renunciation of war.

American occupation authorities insisted that Japan adopt a democratic constitution, but Japanese political leaders were reluctant to revise the undemocratic prewar constitution. So General MacArthur tasked two dozen GHQ officials with ghostwriting a model constitution that would, with Japanese and Allied input, become the Constitution of Japan. It established a system of parliamentary democracy modeled after Britain’s Westminster system. Yet the cabinet failed to assume its expected role as the foremost organ of executive influence, and remained a loose collection of individual ministers acting as advocates for the interests of their respective ministries. During this period Japan was ruled by an American military dictatorship that governed through a civil bureaucracy that remained essentially intact from prewar times. Although Prime Minister Yoshida and other Japanese leaders – who played a role similar to that of the nineteenth-century comprador-merchants, who served as intermediaries between Chinese and foreigners – sometimes got what they wanted by exploiting factional differences within a bipolar GHQ, ultimately they danced to an American tune. Meanwhile, sensational scandals sullied cabinets and confirmed the popular perception that parliamentary democracy and political corruption go hand-in-hand, thus assuring that cabinet government did not become established in practice.

Introduces the book's main argument: that it is too simple, and ultimately misleading, to say that SCAP (that is, General MacArthur and officers of the American Occupation) “imposed” a Constitution on postwar Japan. Rather, in this book, Japan is treated as a case study of democratization. The chapter also introduces the principal players (MacArthur, Whitney, and Kades on the American side; Shidehara, Yoshida, and Kanamori on the Japanese side). It then describes, in terms that invite comparison with other cases of democratization, the main features of the context (cultural, social, economic, and international) in which they worked to lay the foundation for constitutional democracy.

At the end of July, the subcommittee turned to the bill of rights: Article 20, banning “religious education”; Article 24, on marriage and the family; Articles 25–28, to which the Social Democrats sought to add a guarantee of “minimum standards” of living, and Articles 31–40, dealing with the rights of accused persons. Ch. 17 analyzes these deliberations. The subcommittee's work produced intense sparring between Yoshida and Ashida around the issue of the imperial family's property. GHQ, in the person of Colonel Kades, kept close watch over these deliberations.

The Conclusion notes that Japanese political leaders are currently considering whether to amend their Constitution, particularly article 9, renouncing war and armed forces. In this light, it is important to recognize that the postwar Constitution emerged from a collaboration – one might almost say a conspiracy – between American and Japanese leaders, personified by General MacArthur and Prime Minister Yoshida.

Describes how Whitney pressured the Japanese government to accept the SCAP draft as the basis of a new constitution. Following talks with MacArthur and Whitney, the Shidehara cabinet accepted SCAP's demands and charged Matsumoto with preparing a draft for presentation to Government Section. Whitney and his staff expected the Japanese to submit essentially a translation of the SCAP draft, while Matsumoto believed he could determine the contents of the draft so long as he included the “fundamental principles” (the emperor as “symbol” and renunciation of war) mentioned by MacArthur to Shidehara. This misunderstanding caused a serious conflict when the two sides met to consider Matsumoto's March 2 draft.

Chapter 6 follows Rusch’s work in army intelligence, where he was in close contact with a number of Japanese prime ministers and high officials. Many officials were cooperating with the American effort to ferret out Communists, and Rusch was part of an administration that bent the rules of democracy by supporting pro-American Japanese candidates while hindering their opponents. At the same time, Rusch was working to restore institutions of the Nippon Seikokai, the Episcopal Church of Japan, and he used his authority as an army officer to forward his various projects, including the rebuilding of Seisen-Ryo. He was accused by his superiors of abusing his power to help the church and rebuild the lodge. Rusch covertly aided the heiress Miki Sawada in caring for mixed-race children born of sexual liaisons between Japanese women and Allied personnel, and he routinely raided American supplies to help Sawada feed the displaced children. Rusch also played a minor role in ushering in the McCarthy era in America, providing anti-Communist intelligence to his superiors and helping defend the army and his boss, General Charles A. Willoughby, against charges that Willoughby’s operatives smeared an American citizen as a Communist agent.

Recounts the intense debate in the revision committee over Article 9, renouncing war and armed forces, and the contents of the bill of rights (Chapter III). The chapter reveals sharp quarrels between Chairman Ashida Hitoshi and representatives of the left about viewing the Weimar Constitution as a model for Japan's new democracy. It sets forth the debate over human rights: what would be the status of religion under the new constitutional structure? Would Japan's traditional family structure survive in the new emphasis on the rights of individuals? A notable speech by a newly elected female member, Katō Shizue, and rejoinders by Kimura Tokutarō and Tanaka Kōtarō, ministers of justice and education, respectively, explored these questions.