Japanese-American war as a case study for understanding the multi- faceted nature of bility among different power and cultural systems. I hope that this.
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English Choose a language for shopping. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web. AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally. Amazon Inspire Digital Educational Resources. Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go. Amazon Restaurants Food delivery from local restaurants. ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Power and Culture by Akira Iriye. The Japanese-American War, 3. Power and Culture challenges existing assumptions about the war in the Pacific.
By focusing on the interplay between culture and international relations, one of the world's most distinguished scholars of United States-Japanese affairs offers a startling reassessment of what the war really meant to the two combatants. Akira Iriye examines the Japanese-American war for the f Power and Culture challenges existing assumptions about the war in the Pacific.
Akira Iriye examines the Japanese-American war for the first time from the cultural perspectives of both countries, arguing that it was more a search for international order than a ruthless pursuit of power. His thesis is bold, for he convincingly demonstrates that throughout the war many Japanese leaders shared with their American counterparts an essentially Wilsonian vision of international cooperation. As the war drew to a close, these statesmen began to plan for a cooperative world structure that was remarkably similar to the ideas of American policymakers. Indeed, as Iriye shows, the stunning success of Japanese-American postwar relations can be understood only in the light of a deep convergence of their ideals.
Iriye has drawn his conclusions from original research, using official Japanese archives and recently declassified American documents. These offer a totally new perspective on the ways leaders in both countries actually viewed the war they were waging. Paperback , pages. Published September 15th by Harvard University Press first published Pulitzer Prize Nominee for History To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
To ask other readers questions about Power and Culture , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Jan 15, Sarah Crawford rated it really liked it. This is a book that looks at the war along the lines of cultural differences between the two nations, and it's filled with quite a bit of interesting information.
Most books talk about the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, naming it Manchuko, but this book details the plans before the actual takeover. The idea was to resettle Japanese into the Manchuria area and then take over its economic development to favor Japan, of course. A plan made in was scheduled for some twenty years, to resettle This is a book that looks at the war along the lines of cultural differences between the two nations, and it's filled with quite a bit of interesting information. A plan made in was scheduled for some twenty years, to resettle one million Japanese households into the Manchuria area, and about half a million Japanese actually ended up migrating to Manchuria before the end of the war, some , of which were farmers.
Another plan, made a year earlier, looked at economic development of north China under the control of Japan and Manchuko. A lot of the justification, on the Japanese side, for the attack on China was to free it, and other Asian areas, of domination by the western powers. One of the early things to tip the balance of whether or not there would be war with the US was the US freezing of Japanese assets, and the revocation of all export licenses for shipping oil to Japan.
The Dutch authorities in the East stopped their shipping of oil to Japan, and this put Japan under a lot of pressure since it didn't have its own oil supplies. Getting the oil through peaceful means rather the invasion of other countries didn't seem to be considered very strongly, though. I've read elsewhere that Yamamoto, the great Japanese admiral, said he would run wild pretty much for a year but after that things would turn against Japan due to the strength of the US and that's just what happened.
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Why did these men--military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor--put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in harm's way? Introducing us to the doubters, schemers, and would-be patriots who led their nation into this conflagration, Hotta brilliantly shows us a Japan rarely glimpsed--eager to avoid war but fraught with tensions with the West, blinded by reckless militarism couched in traditional notions of pride and honor, tempted by the gambler's dream of scoring the biggest win against impossible odds and nearly escaping disaster before it finally proved inevitable.
In an intimate account of the increasingly heated debates and doomed diplomatic overtures preceding Pearl Harbor, Hotta reveals just how divided Japan's leaders were, right up to and, in fact, beyond their eleventh-hour decision to attack. We see a ruling cadre rich in regional ambition and hubris: Even as Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the Roosevelt administration, Matsuoka Yosuke, the egomaniacal foreign minister who relished paying court to both Stalin and Hitler, and his facile supporters cemented Japan's place in the fascist alliance with Germany and Italy--unaware or unconcerned that in so doing they destroyed the nation's bona fides with the West.
We see a dysfunctional political system in which military leaders reported to both the civilian government and the emperor, creating a structure that facilitated intrigues and stoked a jingoistic rivalry between Japan's army and navy. Roles are recast and blame reexamined as Hotta analyzes the actions and motivations of the hawks and skeptics among Japan's elite.
Emperor Hirohito and General Hideki Tojo are newly appraised as we discover how the two men fumbled for a way to avoid war before finally acceding to it. Hotta peels back seventy years of historical mythologizing--both Japanese and Western--to expose all-too-human Japanese leaders torn by doubt in the months preceding the attack, more concerned with saving face than saving lives, finally drawn into war as much by incompetence and lack of political will as by bellicosity.
An essential book for any student of the Second World War, this compelling reassessment will forever change the way we remember those days of infamy. Hardcover , First Edition , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Japan , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Feb 23, Hadrian rated it really liked it Shelves: Study of how Japan's political leadership blundered into a war with the United States, even after it had been at war with China since We already know what happens - Japan launches a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December , but Hotta's reconstruction of the decisions of the political class make this a narrative of tense relationships, a constrictive organizational structure, and short-sighted stumbling into war.
Hotta pushes back against a trend of revisionist historians on the pol Study of how Japan's political leadership blundered into a war with the United States, even after it had been at war with China since Hotta pushes back against a trend of revisionist historians on the political right who deny responsibility and claim that Japan was "forced" into war - the number of communiques and offers to negotiate on the American side, well before the Hull note of November , were proof enough of that. The Japanese economy did not "suddenly" feel pressured after the US oil embargo in August Food and fuel were running out by Rice was already of such low quality that one diarist says it was like mouse droppings.
And while the author uncovers some diarists and memoir writers who were happy when war broke out, she finds none of the top leadership were even confident of victory -- even the most optimistic considered it a gamble. Hotta finds much fault at the very top. Even this early, the United States was not interested in war. This was ignored in internal discussions.
He encouraged Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations to gain a bigger audience. He worked for a non-aggression pact with the Soviets in to get himself in the news again, and then, after Germany invaded in June of that year, then wanted to invade them from the east. Military pressures on civilian leadership did not help. The army and navy competed for scarce resources, yet both insisted on time constraints for diplomatic solutions and refused to back down.
Even Tojo Hideki saw a war with the United States would be painful -- yet did little to stop it. The emperor was often sidelined and was at times a rubber stamp for other's plans, the media was constantly braying for war, and other leaders carried a "victim complex" of being bullied and humiliated, and that was a motivation for empire. This is a fresh and invigorating look at how a nation can stumble into a painful and debilitating war, and one that Japan barely survived. Feb 14, Chin Joo rated it really liked it Shelves: Those who are interested in understanding of the events that led to Japan's fateful decision to attack Pearl Harbor will find this book an important one to read.
It is one that is packed with information carefully written in an engaging way to provide great insights into how the Japanese eventually went into war with the US. What this book does is to show that such a momentous decision was not arrived in a clinical and logical fashion, rather readers of this book would not help noticing how illo Those who are interested in understanding of the events that led to Japan's fateful decision to attack Pearl Harbor will find this book an important one to read.
What this book does is to show that such a momentous decision was not arrived in a clinical and logical fashion, rather readers of this book would not help noticing how illogical, convoluted, and even preposterous the decision process was. It should be stressed that the book's focus is more on the decision process, rather than the decision itself, which as a bad one was a given. That it was a bad decision was not only clear in hindsight, you will see from the book that there were more people including the emperor who believed that it was a bad decision to go to war with the US than those who believed it was right, which only makes it more perplexing.
Representing those who were really pushing for war with the US was the Imperial Army and very vocal too. The rest, represented by the Imperial Navy, successive prime ministers, and other members of the cabinet knew it would be disastrous to go down that road, but as the story developed, the reader gets to see how the strange behaviours among the 'doves' eventually made their own positions untenable, and had to be driven along to war with the US. The author used the concept of Honne to Tatemae to throw some light on these behaviours.
This is the concept of saying something or saying something is a certain way but carrying with it an intended meaning. In simple terms, the opposite of "calling a spade a spade". The trouble with doing this was that the listener who did not understand this might misinterpret what the speaker was trying to say, but more seriously, as shown in this book, it could be maneuvered by the listener to mean something else totally.
And many a times it was used to good effect by those who advocated war while everyone else looked helplessly at each other, hoping that someone else would find this one small gap to exploit so that they could heap on more doubts and hoped that it snowballed into something big enough for all to decide that war was a bad idea, apparently even the army faction was hoping for that while advocating war p. Yet they did attempt to find a way out of the situation, initiating many contacts with the US which unfortunately led to nowhere.
They attempted to have a summit and when that was not progressing well , Sato Kenryo was quoted in the book saying "What idiots they are in Washington! If they agreed to meet with Konoe without any conditions, everything would go their way. But for the Japanese leaders, there was no contradictions, they have to keep up the appearance while trying to avert war - Honne to Tatemae.
It was written in the academic style and was not so easy to read. This one, Japan , is clearly meant for lay-readers and is therefore much more readable. Unfortunately I think I was spoilt by her earlier book and had hoped that she would repeat that feat. She did in contents, but she had to avoid going into too much analysis in a book thus positioned. Still I must commend her for being very immaculate, for example she used "U.
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The inclusion of the timeline of major events in the book was of great value and the Prologue makes a compelling introduction to the whole book. These are important people in their own rights but while it has added colour to the book, they were not important to the development of the author's narrative and sometimes came out distracting. The author, being Japanese, has a nuanced understanding of her own culture and therefore was able to explain the behaviours of the Japanese in exceptionally well. Paradoxically it can be misinterpreted as an attempt to excuse their behaviours and so she would sometimes have to illuminate her own attitudes towards them and the war itself by criticising them severely.
I think it is something that she had to do in order for us not to dismiss her too quickly. We read history in the sometimes vain hope of learning from it, so that we do not repeat it. Yet we have to be careful; as illogical and unimaginable as they have behaved in , would we not have done the same?
How many of us would really stand up and confront a seemingly stupid idea? Have we not come across situations in which everyone sitting in a meeting knew that a course of action was disastrous but finding everyone quiet, kept to our own counsel? Somehow the long-term and more severe pain cannot make me suffer the short-term embarrassment.
And we will go out of the meeting whispering to each other that the decision taken in the meeting was a wrong one. Everyone suddenly appeared to agree to something opposite of what was agreed upon in the meeting, but no one was really at fault, because "someone" else pushed everyone along. Pay attention to all the conversations in the meetings in the book, pick a character who disagreed with the war, then ask what you would do if you were him. View all 11 comments. May 31, Mike rated it really liked it Recommends it for: When I eventually reached its shores on business trips I found that I enjoyed the people, culture, and land as much as I had the Monsters, Sci-Fi, and Anime.
For the last couple of years I have made pitiful progress in trying to learn a bit of the language. Among the Japan I had some issues with repetition, but overall it is a sober look at a defeated and destroyed nation. Japan , is not really a counterpoint to that book. While it is true that economic conditions for ordinary people do have some mention, the focus of this book is almost entirely on the powerful and the organizations that wielded influence in the inter-World War period. It is a very well-written and researched book. There are passages that suggest that despite his divine authority, he truly was a figurehead who tried, with all the official methods at his disposal to question and delay the decision to undertake war with the United States and its start.
By themselves, one might be skeptical of these sections, but when combined with the details of the actions of the military and political leadership it seems more credible that the Emperor was not in control of events. The details of this book are fascinating if you have any interest in the mistakes that people and countries make.
What one cannot do is debate the specific actions that concerned and irritated the Western Powers and these are fully covered. The signing of the Tripartite Treaty with Nazi Germany Italy was essentially a non-factor was seen as a heinous act in the West, but regarded as something not so important in the Japanese corridors of power. Later, the invasion even if it was relatively quiet of Northern French Indochina was another highly important point for the West. The Japanese could not understand how they had diminished destroyed some might say their international standing and credibility by signing the Tripartite Axis Treaty.
They thought it was a smart maneuver that would show the international community that they were still major players. They thought it would help them against the encroachment of Russia USSR on their mainland and island possessions. The Japanese could not sit back and watch the oil embargo slowly diminish their stocks of petroleum during the next years, which would have cut of their ability to supply men and material to the China War and, later, to occupied Indochina.
The Japanese could not understand that the West US was not going to yield on certain points that Japan thought it could continue to play out into the future when trying to reach some common understanding. Even their most seasoned diplomats except at the end were clueless about the true feelings of Roosevelt and the other US leaders. The Japanese leaders would not take a stand that they knew was politically and morally correct when it was in opposition to others or to consensus.
Instead, they would routinely resign as a way of showing in a delicate and nuanced manner their disagreement. This book covers all of these points and more in precise and straightforward language. Hotta shows the reader not only how divided the various factions were in public, but also how divided they were in private. After reading this contrast in so many players it seems as if they were actors playing a role: The author writes that Hideki Tojo Prime Minister at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor was not privately in favor of the decision to go to war, but had to support this decision made before he even took power.
This is perhaps a bit too generous. Before he became PM, Tojo was one of those who argued for the need to attack as Army Minister in the second and third Konoe governments. In fact he publicly exhorted the continuation of the war plans as the US continued to insist that Japan exit China and the expanded Manchukuo state.
Is the author being too kind? It is hard to say. Tojo held onto the post of Army Minister while serving as Prime Minister, so had direct control over much of the war effort. Even if he did have private knowledge that going to war was folly, he had been one of its major factors as he had led the expansion of territory in China. If the book had been written by a non-Japanese author I suspect it would have been treated and reviewed very differently — on both sides of the Pacific.
It is an interesting fact that the decision to expand the territory in Manchukuo and ultimately into China proper was one made by the generals in Manchukuo. According to the records she presents, the home government had no say in the decision and was against it. This expansion became a key issue in the decision-making process. The last point I wanted to mention was the drive to consensus. This is a consistent theme throughout the book. No matter whose government was in charge or at what level people were making choices, the need to appear unified and like-minded overcame all objections, fears, and dissension.
This was not a result of a crisis as it often is in Western governments it was the normal behavior of those in every level of the military, the government and even, for the most part, private citizens. From the Emperor on down, the nail that stuck up squatted down before it was hammered there. I started reading this book in February and had to leave it behind during a trip to Asia. I picked it up again during April only to leave it once again during another Asian trip.
I finally finished it in May. It is an indication of how good the writing is that I retained my interest and thoughts over this long period and several bouts of jet lag. Four and one-half 4. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Jul 20, Steven Z. The last half of 19th century was a period when European nationalism flourished and began to spread its influence eastward.
The lessons of nationalism were absorbed in Asia, and Japan became an excellent pupil of western industrialization and expansion. Following the Meiji Restoration of , Japan slowly remade itself by emulating the west.
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Unlike China, Japan had no difficulty in assimilating western institutions in order to develop into what they perceived to be a great power. By the s J The last half of 19th century was a period when European nationalism flourished and began to spread its influence eastward. By the s Japan was able to defeat China in the Sino-Japanese War, and in the following decade she surprised Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, the first time a non-white power defeated a Caucasian power. Japan continued its program of making Asia safe for Asians and projecting themselves as a power on par with the west.
Japan continued its attempts to dominate China in by precipitating an attack that justified an invasion. The war in China used tremendous resources and brought Japan into conflict with the United States. At a time when the long drawn out war in China was reaching a stalemate, why would Japan contemplate a war against the United States? The story has been told by many; whether from the American diplomatic viewpoint, the intelligence breakthroughs, the military story, and conspiracy theories concerning Franklin D.
However, no one has attempted to mine the Japanese sources extensively and try and understand how the Japanese bureaucracy and government officials reached decisions that would ultimately result in the destruction of their country by Having talked themselves into believing that they were victims of circumstances rather than aggressors, they discarded less heroic but more rational options and hesitantly yet defiantly propelled the country on a war course.
The author also discusses the role of Japanese citizens outside of government service. For example, the integration of the thoughts of the novelist Nagai Kofu, who represented, in part the anti-militarist sentiment in segments of Japanese society, providing insights into the private thoughts of Japanese citizens who were afraid to make their feelings known publicly. The work of Richard Sorge, a German journalist based in Tokyo, who was also a Russian spy and was good friends with the German ambassador to Japan is also fascinating. In addition, the mini-biography of Soldier U, who in in his late thirties was recalled to military service and sent to China, and later to Indo China has a story that could be a separate book in of itself.
These individuals and others present a well rounded picture of all aspects of Japanese society, as their government was privately was planning on expanding their war for control of Asia. The reader is given a snapshot into the decision making process as Hotta relies heavily on liaison meetings of the Japanese government throughout the book.
These meetings included the most important senior officials, both civilian and military. She singles out the most influential figures and allows the reader to understand the reasoning behind the decision-making process of each person as debate evolved throughout as to whether war was the only option, or should diplomatic avenues have been explored further. The positions of men like Konoe, Tojo, Nagano and the bakuryo officers, mid-level bureaucrats who prepared most of the positions taken are analyzed and one can witness how difficult it was to achieve any consensus on policy in this environment.
However, once a consensus was reached, no matter how convoluted the decision making process and delusionary some of the ideas of policy makers were it was almost impossible to alter or change the course toward war. Hotta proves without a shadow of a doubt that the Japanese leadership suffered from self-delusion as they constantly came up with arguments to buttress themselves against the sound reasoning that a war against the United States was futile. In large part, Japanese pride and belief in their own superiority led them to take such a huge national gamble.
For Japanese policy makers what was the difference between theirs and the American approach to expansion. Further, Hotta spends a great deal of time discussing Japanese perceptions of their own inferiority visa vie the west.
Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, by Akira Iriye
They saw it through the lens of racial discrimination that clouded their judgment when making decisions. As Alfred Adler pointed out in his studies of the inferiority complex; that people and nations? It was seen by Japanese leaders as a provocation and a disgrace as they felt they were being bullied and humiliated. The note itself was taken as an ultimatum, which it was not. Hotta is able to review the history of Japanese modernization and expansion that led to World War II very nicely, but she does it in such a way that she able to dissect the all too human characteristics of Japanese leaders that were torn by doubt in the months preceding Pearl Harbor, but could not overcome their own need to save face, and finally pushed Japan into a war because of their own incompetence and lack of political will.
JAPAN, , as of now is the best work dealing with the Japanese viewpoint and decision making process leading to war with the United States, and should remain so for a long time to come. May 03, Brandon Abraham rated it really liked it. Eri Hotta's Japan attempts to find answers as to why a nation's political and military leadership decided to embark on a mission which was virtually impossible to attain victory in service to an Axis alliance whose benefit to Japan was based on speculation and wishful thinking.
S Eri Hotta's Japan attempts to find answers as to why a nation's political and military leadership decided to embark on a mission which was virtually impossible to attain victory in service to an Axis alliance whose benefit to Japan was based on speculation and wishful thinking. Such leaders, themselves frustrated with their own quagmire in China, capitalized on the momentum of the German blitzkrieg and used this in order to quell pro-British sentiment throughout Japan.
The rough thinking was that the defeat of both Britain and the USSR by Germany would force the Allies to the table in the Pacific, particularly since Japan's Imperial Navy seemed to have strategic advantage over war-weary Britain and the seemingly war-averse United States. Certainly, conquering Singapore would take Britain out of the war and probably convince the US to reconsider.
While we all know how flawed such thinking turned out, Hotta's analysis raises interesting questions. First, knowing the racial theories of Nazi ideology and the disparaging remarks in Mein Kempf about the Japanese, how did the Japanese leadership sell the Tripartite Pact? Second, most Western audiences have never heard the stories of pro-British Japanese politicians. I would have liked to have heard more on resistance to the Axis alliance. Lastly, how did the militarists convincingly sell a war to a population already wary of fighting an unsuccessful war in China?
Outside the most die-hard believers in nationalist ideology, nobody believed Japan would emerge victorious over the combined efforts of the Allies, nor did they believe Germany could effectively aid Japan in this effort. While Hotta explores these questions, the answers are not entirely convincing. Nov 03, Diane Henry rated it liked it Shelves: It's probably very difficult to try to re-create the thought-process of the major Japanese players leading up to Pearl Harbor and this is a valiant effort.
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Nonetheless, it was also a tough read. It's tough to keep track of who is who and why they matter. Still not sure what the point of the inclusion of the Soviet spy, R 2. Still not sure what the point of the inclusion of the Soviet spy, Richard Sorge, has to do with the decision to go to war with the US.
However, there was a lot of new to me, anyway information. Hotta offers a plausible narrative of how a government of a small, resource-poor country could even contemplate going to war with a resource-rich country with any expectation of winning. I also had no idea that Japan and the US were in a kind of diplomatic negotiations almost until Pearl Harbor.
I had thought that the bombing came out of nowhere. Historians, diplomats, WWII gamers.