WOMEN OF OKINAWA: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island, by Ruth Ann Keyso. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, 168 pp., $16.95 (cloth).

Ruth Ann Keyso traveled to Okinawa in 1997 to write a history of the island's postwar past. Following conversations with various people on the island, she decided to write this history through the eyes of nine women who represented three periods of Okinawan history. Three of the women Keyso interviewed survived the Battle of Okinawa, three grew up during the U.S. Occupation (1945-1972), and three were born shortly before or after the island's reversion to Japan in 1972. The war, she discovered, does not hold the same significance for each generation.

In a historiographic context, it is significant that Keyso elects to write her history of Okinawa from the perspective of oral accounts provided by women, but there are a number of reasons why her approach should be considered valid.

First and foremost, many Okinawan men died in the Battle of Okinawa, and women were responsible for rebuilding the island in the postwar years and restoring normalcy to people's lives. Women also played a crucial role in wartime, supporting their families while their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers were fighting. In the wake of Japan's defeat, women enjoyed more status and power on the island because of the democratic reforms that were introduced by U.S. forces.