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Title: Pacific War, 1931-1945 by Saburo Ienaga ISBN: 0-394-73496-3 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 12 July, 1979 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Must Read!
Comment: If you want to try to understand Japanese interpretations of thier involvement in World War II, then this is a book you must read!
This book is from a Japanese perspective (there are many different interpretations among Japanese scholars as he mentions in this book, and which he is railing against). He uses the term 15-year-war because of his belief that Japan was in a continuous state of aggression from 1931 onward. He agrues that this aggression was a mind set of most people at the time, and lists in great numbers the atrocities commited during the war (from the oppression in the conquered territories to oppression in the army and the home).
Ienaga was a high school teacher during the war and was dismayed at the way in which his governemnt and many people embraced militarism and violent aggression overseas. His frustration with his own people is evident throughout the entire book as he complains about the lack of freedoms that people should have had to oppose the war (and those that protested it anyway were severely punished by the government).
Some of the other reviewers complained of his bias, but to be fair this book is an analysis of events. This is NOT intended to be a text book. It is intended to present a method to understand the facts and events which a textbook would give you. He presents it very carefully and thoughtfully, and after reading the book you can judge the whether the conclusion was justified or not.
I am encouraging you to read this book because I believe that his arguments are well thought out, and you can get a feeling for how deeply World War II effected this man's thought process.
-ATR
P.S. In regards to the Nanking massacre, the numbers on that incident have varied from time to time because of the cover up of it. I don't know for certain, but I would suspect that since Ienaga wrote this book in the 60's, the information on real numbers of dead might not have been available. Iris Chang's book, The Rape of Nanking, was printed relatively recently and really helped bring to light the level of horror committed there.
Rating: 2
Summary: a history or a polemic?
Comment: I was quite disappointed with this book. Although it does provide some interesting insights into how Japan let itself be drawn into a disastrous war with China and the West, too much of the book reads like an anti-military, anti-Western polemic. For example, while there is plenty of material on Japanese atrocities against Asians (and it must have taken courage for Ienaga to present this material to his countrymen) there is virtually no discussion of Japanese atrocities against Westerners. Ienaga is also curiously restrained towards Russia; he argues that the Kwangtung Army provoked the Russian attack into Manchuria in August 1945, which is absurd, and manages to blame the Americans for the Russian seizure of the Kuriles. His description of American misbehavior in Japan after the war is grossly exaggerated; although he discusses the shameful behavior of the Japanese postwar government in setting up a system of prostitution to cater to American occupation troops, he fails to mention that this organization was dissolved on orders from McArthur. Writing in 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, Ienaga condemns the United States as the new agressor in Asia, suggesting a moral equivalence between the Japanese military of the 1930s and 1940s and the American military of the 1960s that I found awfully hard to swallow. Ienaga's political agenda definitely gets in the way of his telling of history.
Rating: 2
Summary: Critical Perspective??
Comment: For those who are ready to read a book from the Japanese viewpoint owning up to their atrocities during World War II, this is NOT the book. Nanking is addressed in less than 2 pages with the only citation of Chinese dead at 20,000. Not one word is written about the Bataan death march and the horrendous treatment of Allied POWs by the Japanese in Japan and areas throughout Asia and the Pacific.
I found Ienaga's explanation of Pearl Harbor lacking. He explains, "Yet the American government gained an even greater psychological advantage. By allowing Japan to strike the first blow, even the isolationists were swept up in the patriot clamor for war and victory." (pg. 137) By allowing?? Is he referring to the U.S. option of mounting its own secret first strike?
Ienaga states, "The Auschwitz gas chambers of our 'ally' and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by our enemy America are classic examples of rational atrocities." (pg. 187) I'm am sorry, but to relate the holocaust to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is beyond belief. Make no mistake about his accusation as he later states, "Nevertheless, Pal was correct in stating that the decision to use the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki closely resembled the orders issued by German leaders brought to trial as war criminals at Nuremberg." (pg. 201) He then continues with, "The harsh treatment of civilians in Manchuria had its counterpart in Japan under U.S. occupation forces." He continues, "The violence came later, however, in the assaults, robberies and general mayhem committed by American troops against civilians." (both pg. 236) Now U.S. troops in Japan are equivalent to Japanese troops in Manchuria!! Does he ever stop?
There may be some redeeming sections to this book, but it is not worth the insult to anyone's intelligence to wade through the waste. My suggestion is to bypass this book and spend your money on another book for a look at the Japanese in World War II.
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Title: War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower ISBN: 0394751728 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 12 February, 1987 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War by Steven E. Miller, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, Stephen Van Evera ISBN: 0691023492 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 26 August, 1991 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Japan at War: An Oral History by Haruko Taya Cook, Theodore F. Cook ISBN: 1565840399 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: October, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Every War Must End by Fred Charles Ikle ISBN: 0231076894 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: The Meaning of Hitler by Sebastian Haffner, Sebastain Haffner, Ewald Osers ISBN: 0674557751 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1983 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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