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Title: The Yamato Dynasty : The Secret History of Japan's Imperial Family by STERLING SEAGRAVE, PEGGY SEAGRAVE ISBN: 0-7679-0497-4 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 14 August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.71 (28 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Nice fiction
Comment: Tightly written and easy to read. Interesting subject, though not quite that secret. It is good to have a basic history of the Japanese Imperial family. And it is interesting to see the interaction with American public persons. MacArthur: He grew up in a log cabin out West, surrounded by hostile Indians. Maybe that gave him an inferiority complex. Churchill and Roosevelt conniving to get the US actively into a war the people did not really want. FDR as Secretary of the Navy after World War I, assessing the military situation in the Pacific: When the Japanese attack, it will be at Pearl Harbor.
The book is a nice read but, please, do not take it as documented history.
Rating: 1
Summary: What a waste
Comment: This is the first Seagraves book I have read and will be the last as this book leaves the reader wanting. When I first picked it up, I thought that tackling 1 Emperor in 1 book was a difficult challenge, but 5?! seemed a bit much. Turns out I was correct and not enough background was given on the early Emperors and the book should have been called "Hirohito". By far the most frustrating thing in this book was the lack of "footnotes"-I am not clear on what I was supposed to do; finish reading a page and then turn to the notes section and look up the page to see if there was a note and guess what the note was referring to? Or perhaps I was to read the entire book and then the notes and try to match with the rest of the book? Perhaps the Seagraves should learn about the "*" key to indicate a page where there is a footnote attached or perhaps using small numbers beside passages that require footnotes (what a novel concept!).
Having never read anything they have written before, I am not sure of their qualifications to comment on Japan, but it becomes apparent throughout the book, that their knowledge of Japan is quite superficial.
Definitely a non-read for anyone interested in an in-depth look at Japan from the Meiji era on.
Rating: 2
Summary: Interesting, Light Reading ... With Some Faults
Comment: I was looking for a history of the Japanese monarchy. There really doesn't seem to be much out there, aside from some individual biographies of Emperors Hirohito and Meiji, and Jerrold M. Packard's excellent Sons of Heaven. I thought the Seagraves' The Yamato Dynasty might be able to fill a gap and teach me something about Japan's reigning dynasty. It did that, I suppose. But it did not do it in a very objective way.
The tone of this book is clearly anti-monarchy. That is, anti-Japanese monarchy. In many places you get the impression that the authors would have been quite pleased if the entire Japanese monarchy and imperial family had been swept away in 1945 and replaced with a "republic."
Most of the book discusses Hirohito and his brothers and uncles, and all the nasty things they did. Fair enough; maybe Hirohito was a bad guy, maybe he should have been forced to abdicate, and tried as a war criminal. But then the Seagraves constantly repeat their point that "real" power in Japan has never been with the emperor at all, but with "the oligarchs" --- be they shoguns, leaders of the zaibatsu, or underworld "godfathers. If that is so, then how can the authors justify their apparent distaste for the monarchy? Or their charges against Hirohito and other recent emperors?
You can't have it both ways: either Hirohito and his relatives on the throne were powerful enough to commit the abuses they are accused of, or they were virtual puppets ("hostages" is the word the Seagraves use most often) who merely rubber-stamped whatever their masters behind the scenes told them to. So which is it? This book doesn't say, and doesn't provide enough evidence for either case. Or rather, the authors seem to take both sides, and they present a jumble of conflicting "evidence" which really doesn't help the reader to make a conclusion either way.
That is the major fault of this book: the authors failed to convince me one way or the other. I picked up their book undecided if Hirohito was a "war criminal" and when I put the book back on the shelf after having read it through, I am still just as undecided! On the bright side, I did learn some interesting trivia about Japan and its imperial family. But I think this book should have given me more than just that.
A more minor fault of this book, but one I must mention, is the authors' almost blatant anti-American tone. I've learned to overlook such attitudes in books, particularly ones written by Europeans, so it wasn't really a big deal. However, if they want their book to be considered "real" history instead of political diatribe, they really should tone it down just a bit.
I'll give this book 3 stars for research, another star for interesting writing; but I'll subtract one star because the book did not give me much beyond some trivia, and another star because the authors failed to make any convincing arguments to prove their point (whatever their point was!) I will say that the book made interesting light reading for summer vacation.
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Title: Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold by Sterling Seagrave, Peggy Seagrave ISBN: 1859845428 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave ISBN: 0060913185 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 19 April, 1986 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Steve Seagrave, Sterling Seagrave ISBN: 0060158158 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: October, 1988 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: Dragon Lady : The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China by Sterling Seagrave ISBN: 0679733698 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Lords of the Rim: The Invisible Empire of the Overseas Chinese by Sterling Seagrave ISBN: 0399140115 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: November, 2000 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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