Emperor Hirohito

"Hoyt's biography, taking advantage of recent posthumous revelations of a Japanese foreign service diplomat, portrays Hirohito as a man of peace held captive by his role in Japanese society and government . . ." Library Journal "A successful new book from a topnotch writer . . ." Booklist" . . . provocative . . ." Kirkus Reviews

Japan's war in Asia and the Pacific from 1937 to 1945 remains a subject of great interest, yet the wartime Japanese army remains little understood outside Japan. Most published accounts rely on English-language works written in the 1950s and 1960s. The Japanese-language sources have remained relatively inaccessible to western scholars in part due to the difficulty of the language, a difficulty the author, who reads Japanese fluently, surmounts.

In a series of searching examinations of the structure, ethos, and goals of the Japanese military establishment, Edward J. Drea offers new material on its tactics, operations, doctrine, and leadership. Based on original military documents, official histories, court diaries, and Emperor Hirohito's own words, these twelve essays introduce western readers to fifty years of Japanese scholarship about the war and Japan's military institutions. In addition, Drea uses recently declassified Allied intelligence documents related to Japan to challenge existing views and conventional wisdom about the war.

Following the Pearl Harbor attack Imperial Japanese contingents overran large areas of Southeast Asia and the Pacific until checked by U.S. forces at Midway and Guadalcanal. This book demonstrates how America and the British Commonwealth were able to evolve and apply a victorious strategy in very difficult military circumstances. The Pacific struggle is put in its full international context. Events in China, Anglo-American diplomatic efforts to bring Russia into the war against Japan, and the development and decision to use the atomic bomb are all described. The Japanese response to strategic reverses during 1944-45 is related, as is the way that Emperor Hirohito personally intervened with his militarist government in August 1945 to end the Pacific War. The result of all these converging events was the "Journey to the Missouri" made by the Japanese government and High Command on 2 September 1945 when the instrument of surrender was signed in Tokyo Bay. An epilogue describes how this uniquely bitter struggle,had a successful sequel in the occupation of Japan.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, leading America from a wheelchair; Genghis Khan, conquering Central Asia until he died in a riding accident; Nelson Mandela, teaching freedom through prison walls: this multicultural reference tool examines 200 leaders, rulers, and activists from around the world. Detailed biographical essays place them in a broad historical context, illuminating their enduring impact on the common understanding, and fundamental themes, of human existence.

In December 1937, flush with confidence from their victories over the Nationalists in Beijing and Shanghai, the Japanese Army swept into Nanking and, over the next seven weeks, looted and burned the city and systematically raped, brutalized, and murdered more than 250,000 defenseless civilians. Officially denied by the Japanese government, the story of this atrocity has been suppressed for more than half a century. Now Iris Chang, a Chinese-American writer whose own grandparents survived the massacre, reveals the full horror of their experience and puts a human face on one of the century's worst horrors.

Chang tells the story from three very different perspectives -- that of the Chinese who endured it; the Japanese soldiers who performed it; and that of a heroic group of European and American businessmen and clergy living in Nanking. Led by John Rabe, a German and a member of the Nazi party, these foreigners risked their own lives by defying the Japanese authorities and creating a safety zone in the middle of the city that harbored perhaps 100,000 Chinese. Iris Chang effectively relates the irony of the enigmatic hero John Rabe, a loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler who nevertheless worked tirelessly to save the. innocent from slaughter, by drawing on interviews with survivors and Rabe's own diary entries.

This book is a balanced account of the political, diplomatic, and military currents that influenced Japan's attempts to surrender and the United States's decision to drop the atomic bombs. Based on extensive research in both the United States and Japan, this book allows the reader to follow the parallel decision-making in Tokyo and Washington that contributed to lost opportunities that might have allowed a less brutal conclusion to the war. Topics discussed and analyzed include Japan's desperate military situation; its decision to look to the Soviet Union to mediate the conflict; the Manhattan Project; the debates within Truman's Administration and the armed forces as to whether to modify unconditional surrender terms to include retention of Emperor Hirohito and whether to plan for the invasion of Japan's home islands or to rely instead on blockade and bombing to force the surrender.

In 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally to the United States and its allies, thereby planting the seed from which would spring one of the world's most successful and stable democracies. In an age when democracy is often pursued, yet rarely accomplished, in which failed democracies are found throughout Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Japan's transformation from an utterly defeated military power into a thriving constitutional democracy commands attention. It has long been assumed that postwar Japan was largely the making of America, that democracy was simply imposed on a defeated land. Yet a political and legal system cannot long survive, much less thrive, if resisted by the very citizens it exists to serve. The external imposition of a constitution does not automatically translate into a constitutional democracy of the kind Japan has enjoyed for the past half-century. Apparently Japan, though under military occupation, was ready for what the West had to offer. Ray A. Moore and Donald L. Robinson convincingly show that the country's affirmation of democracy was neither cynical nor merely tactical. What made Japan different was that Japan and the United States-represented in Tokyo by the headstrong and deeply conservative General Douglas MacArthur-worked out a genuine partnership, navigating skillfully among die-hard defenders of the emperor, Japanese communists, and America's opinionated erstwhile allies. No dry recounting of policy decisions and diplomatic gestures, Partners for Democracy resounds with the strong personalities and dramatic clashes that paved the way to a hard-won success. Here is the story of how a devastated land came to construct--at times aggressively and rapidly, at times deliberately and only after much debate-a democracy that stands today as the envy of many other nations.

Bradley Lightbody presents a fascinating and accessible history of the Second World War in its global context. Examining the war around general themes from ambition and advance, through expansion and containment, to rout and victory, The Second World War covers all the major theatres and events of the war.From the origins and background to the war to its aftermath and legacy, The Second World War covers:* the pre-war ambitions of Italy, Germany and Japan* the outbreak of the war in Poland* the 'Phoney War'* Blitzkrieg, the Fall of France and the Battle of Britain* Pearl Harbour* the war in North Africa and El Alamein* the final solution* D-Day, the liberation of Italy and deliverance from the concentration camps* the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.This book provides a comprehensive overview of the global ambitions and the global warfare that was the Second World War, making it essential reading for all students of twentieth century world history.