I had the fortuity to pick up this book at the local library in Taipei. It was a great read - truly eye-opening, so I want to share my thoughts on it. Having received a Pulitze Prize for this novel, John Dower did an excellent job, without a doubt, of chronicling the American takeover of Japan and the post-war condition of the Japanese. As an Asian American, there were some pictures and events that I found provocative, yet this history is beyond my time and largely irrelevant today. If anything, reading this has left a mildly bitter aftertaste. Rarely anything I read these days have piqued my interest and emotion as has this chronicle, so I believe it is worth sharing.
We start in the aftermath of World War II. The Potsdam Declaration of 1945 was drafted by the United States, United Kingdom, and China to call for the unconditional surrender of Japan. General MacArthur was tasked with so-called democratizing Japan, which was a dictatorship. It seemed the United States had large shoes to fill in order to follow in the footsteps of Western, imperialistic nations. And so, the democratization of Japan could be said as the USA's first dealings with imperialism. But, can a country with deep emporer worship be democratized? The Americans planned to accomplish this by changing the psychology of the Japanese and reforming their economy.
While Germany was a Western nation, Japan was not. Nazi ideology was treated as cancerous, and the rest of German society could stay. On the other hand, Japan must be reformed. The reformation of Japan after World War II was embodied by MacArthurism. As the author puts it, it was about "denaturing an Oriental adversary and turning it into at least an approximation of an acceptable, healthy, westernized nation."
Initial efforts were largely focused on placing blame. Blaming the imperial military, an institution, rather than the emperor was the narrative during wartime trials. Placing the blame on the imperial institution also served to weaken its influence on the Japanese and push them towards self-government. Yet, elitists like Yoshida Shigeru are still of the opinion that the Japanese cannot be capable of genuine self-government.
Page detailing "street childrens'" struggles and their successes
Meanwhile, the Japanese struggled to make a living in the peacetime economy. The spoils from the booming wartime economy were largely stolen from the people. The people succumbed to famine. Even though the MacArthur-proppe government provided food rations, they were not enough. In one account by Judge Yamaguchi, he insisted on adhering to the ration diet, but after a year of strict adherence, he died. As a remark, he said, "Would it not have been wiser to die fighting for god laws instead of insisting on lethal ones?" When the government could not adequately provide for the people, the people turned to the black markets for food and goods.
