Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Mr. Bix's book well deserves the many accolades it has won - the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award among them. It represents the most comprehensive, well argued and carefully documented modern presentation of the case for viewing the Emperor Hirohito as an active "war lord," differing from Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini only in the indirection of his operational style. The Showa Emperor was an enthusiastic participant in the politics, ideology and conquests of the war years, but he hid behind the myth and ritual of his ceremonially divine status, protected by a loyal coterie of court officials. The exigencies of the postwar occupation and the historical amnesia of subsequent generations in Japan and elsewhere enabled Hirohito to escape the consequences of his actions. Mr. Bix's fair but damning political biography makes an impressive attempt to redress the balance. My only serious complaint is that the paperback edition lacks a bibliography. Also, I could have done with a bit more background on the events of the Meiji restoration and the nature and practice of Shinto. But these quibbles do not stand in the way of a warm recommendation.

Accepted wisdom says that from his accession in 1926 until the end of World War II, Emperor Hirohito of Japan was a European-style constitutional monarch, with some influence but no real power over his nation's destiny. He had no role in planning or waging the war, and knew nothing about war crimes and outrages like the Rape of Nanking or the Bataan Death March. It was the personal intervention of the peace-loving Emperor, the story goes, who realized the war was lost, that finally forced the militarists to surrender. After the war, the US-imposed Japanese constitution marked a complete break with tradition, and the beginning of a new political and social structure for the Japanese nation.Herbert Bix accepts none of this conventional wisdom. Working from a wealth of Japanese and American sources, including many government documents from both nations' archives, Bix argues that the standard history is a tissue of lies. Indeed, Hirohito seemed to have lived his whole life surrounded, masked, and protected by lies -- first by his own government, and later reinforced by the Americans, who needed him and his nation as allies (not always willing) in the Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union.Instead of a conventional biography, 'Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan' is a sweeping piece of political history. Bix argues convincingly that from the beginning, Hirohito had tremendous influence on the direction of Japanese government policy. His ministers consulted him, and heeded his advice. For example, he favored expansion of the war in China in the 1930s, and although he sometimes issued orders limiting the army's activities there, refused to punish officers who exceeded or ignored his orders -- provided their disobedience yielded positive results.Bix sustains a tremendous volume of detail throughout his volume -- more than can (or should) be covered in a brief review. I encourage you to read the book yourself. It more than repays the effort.The relationship between the US and Japan is one of the central pillars of American foreign policy in the post-war era. Now, with the end of the Cold War, there are signs the Japanese people are less and less willing to remain an American satrapy -- for all intents and purposes still an occupied country -- any longer. Herbert Bix's excellent book not only illuminates vital issues surrounding the Second World War, but also is tremendously useful for helping us understand the geopolitical world of today.

In eyes or minds of most Japanese liberals and lefts, what the author Herbert Bix revealed in this book has "virtually" nothing new. "Hirohito" was no doubt the #1 war criminal responsible for the deaths of many millions. As the author pointed out, the major reason why "Hirohito" escaped from the "war criminal" trials and execution was that General MacArthur (and the American government that supported his Japanese occupation policy) was quite keen to use 'Hirohito" (his spiritual "authority", and not his real political"power") as a tool to suppress most effectively the turmoils in the post-war Japan which otherwise would have been caused by both ultra-rights /millitary heads (against American occupation) and lefts (socialists and communists) against the Japanese establishment. Like many Japanese lefts, both my late father, who died at 83 in a few months after the "Hirohito"'s death in 1989, and myself long believed that both the "Emperor" (Hirohito) and the "Emperor System" (whether it is merely a "symbol"/"puppet" or not) should have been eliminated from Japan right after the end of WWII to establish the true democracy in Japan. Unfortunately our voice, which was considered only as a "tiny" fraction of Japanese people, has been totally ignored by the ruling conservative parties and governments in Japan for more than 55 years.Since a Japanese translation of this English book would never be allowed to be publihsed in Japan (or none of the major Japanese publishers would dare to take such a publication risk) for the coming decade(s), I have no intention to translate it for Japanese readers, although this book is no doubt worth reading for most of open-minded (or even closed-minded) Japanese. Instead, I am planning to write/publish my own Japanese book entitled "Showa Emperor (Hirohito) and American Caesar (MacArthur): making a fatal secret deal in post-war Japan", shortly after I shall retire from science in 2007 at 65. I am a Japanese citizen (born during WWII) working in Melbourne as a molecular oncologist who left Japan in 1973 to work in US, West Germany and Australia for a political reason, shortly after I received my Ph. D.. I firmly believe that the "Emperor System" is a highly malignant "tumor" creeping in Japanese society to be entirely eliminated as soon as possible in the coming 21st century. Otherwise he (or she) in this royal family could make "another" secret deal with a ruling political power(s) for their own survival somedays in the future. I am not against either "Hirohito", his sons or grandsons, personally, but strongly against this so-called "royal" (non-democratically elected) system that created him or his potential "treacherous" descents. Our history of more than two thousand years is telling us the real danger ahead.