Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War - (Soas Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan) by Peter Wetzler (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Informed Western understanding of Imperial Japan still often conjures up images of militarism, blind devotion to leaders, and fanatical pride in the country. But, as Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War reveals, Western imagination is often reductive in its explanation of the Japanese Empire and its collapse. In his analysis of the Emperor, Imperial Japanese Army and Navy during the Second World War, Peter Wetzler examines the disconnect between nation and state during wartime Japan and in doing so offers a much-needed nuanced and sensitive corrective to existing Western scholarship.

Rooted in the perspective of the Japanese, Wetzler makes available to readers vital primary and secondary Japanese archival sources; most notably, this book provides the first English assessment of the recently-released Actual Record of the Showa Emperor. This book is an important advance in English-language studies of the Second World War in Asia, and is thus essential reading for all those wishing to understand this crucial period in Japanese history.

Review Quotes

[An] informed and cogent analysis for anyone seriously interested in Emperor Hirohito and the war he helped to make and unmake.
Michigan War Studies Review

[One] of the better studies of how Japan reaped the whirlwind in its half-century to rule Asia.
The Warbird Forum

In this study of Japan during WWII, Wetzler offers a useful summary of historiographical debates surrounding key issues in the history of that war, including those surrounding Hirohito's alleged wartime culpability, making use of new Japanese-language materials to stake his own positions in those debates.
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About the Author

Peter Wetzler is Senior Research Fellow at the Ostasieninstitut, Germany. He is the author of Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan (1998) and Yugamerareta Showa Tennozo. Obei to Nihon no Gokai to Goyaku (co-authored with Naomi Moriyama, 2006).