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anti_formalist12's review against another edition
4.0
A really excellent bio/history of Hirohito. It illuminates just how involved he was in Japan’s rising tide of militarism and his role in the war effort. A figure who has avoided blame and probably will for some time.
the_real_pengwing's review against another edition
2.0
Too emotional for my taste, at times even acerbic.
colinmcev's review against another edition
4.0
I had been interested in reading Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan ever since I had seen an exhibit of American anti-Japanese propaganda advertisements from during World War II, which used extremely exaggerated Asian stereotypes in its portrayals of the emperor. In addition to being highly offended by the overt racism, it occurred to me that I really didn't know much about Hirohito himself, and my only real impression of him was that he was largely a figurehead who was forced into the war by the Japanese military. As it turns out, this impression was not only false, but probably itself also resulted from American propaganda, which dates back to when American leaders protected Hirohito from prosecution as a war criminal in order to establish democracy in post-WW2 Japan. In this book, Herbert P. Bix presents a strong and compelling argument that the decades-long perception of the emperor as a passive figurehead is a false one, and that Hirohito was in fact a very active player in the country's militarism during the 1930s and 1940s; an emperor who both reigned and ruled.
Although I had long been interested in Japan, particularly 20th century Japanese history, I had not read much about the subject heading in to Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, and I did struggle with the reading at first. Bix does a fairly decent job of providing enough context that the material is approachable even to someone without much past knowledge of Japanese history, but even so it was initially difficult to keep certain names and events straight. But while the initial chapters with Hirohito's childhood and education were a bit slow, the book picks up in a big way once we reach 1931, starting with the Manchurian Incident that led to the Japanese invasion of China. After this point, the book was quite gripping, and Bix's account is especially impressive given how very first-hand accounts and texts were left behind by Hirohito, and how much information is still not rendered publicly available by the Japanese government.
As the book unfolded, it was really interesting to watch how the role of the emperor changed and evolved over the course of the 20th century, from one of the embodiment of a living deity to one of a more symbolic constitutional monarch. The idea of Hirohito, after World War II, being forced to tell his subjects that, despite what they have believed all their lives, he is NOT in fact a god was fascinating to me as an outsider to this culture looking in. I also found intriguing, and somewhat infuriating, how much more quickly the war could have been brought to an end if Hirohito and other Japanese leaders had been more concerned about ending the suffering of their people and less concerned about finding a way to protect their power structure and, as Bix puts it, "lose without losing." As someone several generations removed from this period of history, I've long had issues with the fact that the U.S. government took so many noncombatant lives with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the air raids on Tokyo and other Japanese cities, and I still do. But it's mind-boggling to think how many hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives could have been saved if Hirohito had not delayed his country's surrender for so long.
This is an excellent, comprehensive biography of an intriguing historical figure, impressive in its depth of research and nuance, and it's well worth reading for anyone interested in this area, regardless of how much prior knowledge you have of modern Japanese history.
Although I had long been interested in Japan, particularly 20th century Japanese history, I had not read much about the subject heading in to Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, and I did struggle with the reading at first. Bix does a fairly decent job of providing enough context that the material is approachable even to someone without much past knowledge of Japanese history, but even so it was initially difficult to keep certain names and events straight. But while the initial chapters with Hirohito's childhood and education were a bit slow, the book picks up in a big way once we reach 1931, starting with the Manchurian Incident that led to the Japanese invasion of China. After this point, the book was quite gripping, and Bix's account is especially impressive given how very first-hand accounts and texts were left behind by Hirohito, and how much information is still not rendered publicly available by the Japanese government.
As the book unfolded, it was really interesting to watch how the role of the emperor changed and evolved over the course of the 20th century, from one of the embodiment of a living deity to one of a more symbolic constitutional monarch. The idea of Hirohito, after World War II, being forced to tell his subjects that, despite what they have believed all their lives, he is NOT in fact a god was fascinating to me as an outsider to this culture looking in. I also found intriguing, and somewhat infuriating, how much more quickly the war could have been brought to an end if Hirohito and other Japanese leaders had been more concerned about ending the suffering of their people and less concerned about finding a way to protect their power structure and, as Bix puts it, "lose without losing." As someone several generations removed from this period of history, I've long had issues with the fact that the U.S. government took so many noncombatant lives with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the air raids on Tokyo and other Japanese cities, and I still do. But it's mind-boggling to think how many hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives could have been saved if Hirohito had not delayed his country's surrender for so long.
This is an excellent, comprehensive biography of an intriguing historical figure, impressive in its depth of research and nuance, and it's well worth reading for anyone interested in this area, regardless of how much prior knowledge you have of modern Japanese history.