Second time around for me on this one. I first read Herbert Bix's Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan when it was first published in 2000. I was prompted to pick it up again after recently viewing a documentary profiling the late Emperor.
Bix won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for this work, and deservedly so. In Hirohito, Bix deploys a (then) fresh array of resources (many available only after the Emperor's death in 1989) to debunk many of the myths invented by Japanese and Americans alike to save the Emperor from indictment for his role in World War II. For years, Hirohito was described as weak figurehead who was helpless to the stop the military clique that launched Japan into war against China and the United States. Bix argues, and demonstrates rather persuasively, that Hirohito was a principal in the Japanese war machine; he acted fully as a military leader and head of state, encouraged the belligerency of his people and pursued the war to its disastrous conclusion. To the very end, Hirohito refused to acknowledge any responsibility for his role in the death of millions as well as the brutalities inflicted by his forces in China, Korea, and the Philippines. In fact, he worked with none other than General MacArthur to select his fall guys and fix testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials--the Emperor trying to protect the throne at all cost, the U.S. acting to ensure control of the Japanese population and the military by retaining Hirohito as a figurehead.
Comments