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Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
Author: Herbert P. Bix
Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeIn this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividne...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780756757809
ISBN-10: 0756757800
Pages: 800
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Publisher: Diane Pub Co
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
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Helpful Score: 1
This came highly recommended as a major book on Japanese history, but I have to say I was disappointed. The author has clearly spent a long time researching it and the extensive footnotes would probably be quite useful for those seeking additional resources. However, the narrative is constrained by relatively few first-hand accounts of Hirohito's role in decisionmaking, and the author is left to fill in the gaps with arguments and assumptions. Personally, I found them unpersuasive and inconsistent-- sometimes he insisted that the emperor's written comments should be taken at face value and sometimes not; the emperor would be quoted as against a policy and the author would conclude he was hiding his true view etc. Bix may well have had solid reasons for doing so, but they were not articulated clearly enough to persuade me as a reader. I found this book not nearly as readable or informative as other "seminal" Japanese history books like Embracing Defeat.
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