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Title: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower ISBN: 0-393-32027-8 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.95 (43 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Lessons from an Occupation
Comment: I read this book in light of America's current political situation as occupier in Iraq, to learn what we had done in the past and if there might be some applicable lessons from this.
Dower's book is well-written, easy-to-read and fascinating even for people like me who do not know a lot about Japan or its history. Each chapter looks at a different facet of the occupation in vague chronological order - from the defeat of Japan - what it meant to both Americans and to Japanese, to the welcome of occupiers (no wonder we thought it would be easier in Iraq!), to the social, political and economic implications of the occupation. Lastly it looks at transformations to move Japan out of its war-time era - the writing of a new Constitution (shocking!), and the war-crimes tribunal. Dower is wonderfully honest and perceptive in potraying what happened - both the positive and negative, and with an understanding of the time and circumstances in which decisions were made. In the end, not much will be applicable to our current occupation, except perhaps the need for strong leadership - but would we really want MacArthur as a role model? More than anything, I learned that each situation really is unique - to the country, and to the people involved.
Ironically, of all the "Iraq books" I've read over the past few months, this is one of the most relevent!
Rating: 4
Summary: The best years of our lives from the other side of the ocean
Comment: "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" has been filling my all to few idle moments. The first 250 pages were compelling and overwhelming. In one book is revealed the Japan Sakai Saburo returned to and the depth of detail possible only in printed format. This book can be enjoyed for both its subject and the exquisite detail in which John Dower renders the portrait of post war Japan. Actually its a motion picture as he covers the full period of the occupation. The perspective is (so far) is purely Japanese and man in the street Japanese at that. This is social history done like it should be, must be if it is to be at all useful and enlightening.
No long discourses on the role of the occupation authorities, but lots of interesting revelations on how the Japanese decipher and responded to the demands and requirements of the victors. That aspect of Japanese character that seems to want to take its lead from outside cultures, almost a mimicry, is explored in the adoption of democracy from above and yet it's given the curiously Japanese twists that align the new with old traditions.
The failure to understand the amount of suffering is explored as well. Well that's not completely right. Apparently much of Japanese society understood the horrible things their army and navy did. Yet this understanding lacks an outlet in a culture without a tradition of helping others especially strangers. Submerged in a sense of their own victim hood they failed to respond to the pasts aggressions and are still marked by that today.
The Level of detail is at times too much, almost Lundstromesque. There is a lot to be learned about this culture in this book - literature, economics (black and otherwise), sociology, radio, culture in turmoil that ties the future to some parts of the past, even race relations it's all in here. If there is a blueprint for how the world would react to a benign alien occupation this is it.
Some of the points are developed very subtly. The failure (in western eyes) to respond positively to the suffering they caused in other countries and the development of their own victim hood is built up slowly over several sections. It may be treated more forcefuly in a chapter not yet read. The biggest disappointment is the next to last "What do you tell the dead when you lose?" but to be frank I'm not sure why. Perhaps I've hoped for one chapter that would delve into a detailed Japanese reconstruction of what went wrong with the war. Maybe they just never did that?
What I find myself longing for now is a companion volume that will bridge the gap from the Japan of 1950 to the Japan of today. That society has undergone some considerable change (more slowly this time) since the end of the occupation, it's dangerous to extrapolate from the end of this amazing book.
Ben Schapiro
Rating: 5
Summary: This book came out 4 years too early...
Comment: ...were it to be modified to contrast the policies and efforts of the US in its occupation and democratization of Japan between 1945 and '52 against the present attempts to do the same in Iraq...forget about the colossal increase in sales, such a book would serve as an awesome instrument of guidance, and perhaps even temper some unreasonable criticism being leveled against the occupation as "unprecedented".
And while there are clear and material differences between the basic environments and nature of the occupations, there are some striking lessons learned in the 7 year slog led by McCarthur, and promoted by "radical-idealogues" in the US gov't who maintained a belief Japan could sever its centuries old embrace of Imperialism in favor of Capitalism and Democracy(despite material dissent among many in the War Department and Congress who scoffed at the notion that the Allies, as conquerors, could democratize such a ravaged nation of Imperialist subservients).
The most interesting takeaway for me was the ingenious use of Hirohito as a proxy to the "hearts and minds" of the Japanese people. The US wisely leveraged the extraordinary (cult-like) capital in servitude that the Emperor had built up in the war ravaged empire. Using what was dubbed the "Wedge Strategy" the US seperated the Emperor from the rest of the Japanese Imperial Government, attributing blame for all the evils of the empire that caused devastation and failure to "the Government that betrayed the Emperor, and the people of Japan". The US then proceeded to use the Emperor as a proxy to the public; asserting his preserved authority to conform the Japanese to the basic charter of the Potsdam Declaration and, more significantly, to McCarther (as "Supreme Commander"; jeez, that was actually his title, imagine if Bremer was assigned such a title, times have certainly changed).
From a detailed accounting of the extraordinary devastation to Japan (their economy, their population, their identities), through the mechanics of the occupation, the writing of a constitution (both literally and philosophically) and through the final stages of engineering, this book (at over 500 pages) is chock full of fascinating understandings of one of the greatest undertakings in history; the reconstitution and habilitation of a defeated nation by the nation that defeated it.
This is a fascinating read that is well organized. That it's well organized is worth noting, for as long a read as it is, the casual reader can (from the Table of Contents) skip around the book, read certain chapters of interest, and never feel lost.
I hope this was helpful.
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Title: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix ISBN: 0060931302 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 04 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower ISBN: 0394751728 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 12 February, 1987 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present by Andrew Gordon ISBN: 0195110609 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: The Making of Modern Japan : by Marius B. Jansen ISBN: 0674009916 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Japan at War: An Oral History by Haruko Taya Cook, Theodore F. Cook ISBN: 1565840399 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: October, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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