by Ian Buruma
The best, most exhaustive, and in my view fairest study of Japan under Allied occupation is John Dower’s Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999). For the insider’s view, one can turn with profit to Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal (New York: Free Press, 1987), by Theodore Cohen, edited by Herbert Passin. A highly original take on occupation cultural policies is Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: Japanese Cinema Under the American Occupation, 1945–1952 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1992), by Kyoko Hirano. Apart from Arnold C. Brackman’s book, which I already mentioned, Richard H. Minear’s Victor’s Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971) cannot be left out of any study of the Tokyo trials. Its sharp point of view is only one of the book’s virtues. I also benefited from the intensive scholarship of Meirion and Susie Harries in their Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarization of Japan (London: Hamilton, 1987).
Dan Kurzman’s Kishi and Japan: The Search for the Sun (New York: Astor-Honor, 1960) gives the old rogue too much credit but was useful to me nonetheless. Life in the ruins of Tokyo, and the consequent rebirth of the city, is beautifully evoked in Edward Seidensticker’s Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake (New York: Knopf, 1990). Oshima Nagisa’s diary entry is from a collection of his essays, Taikenteki Sengo Eizoron (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1975). For a discussion, from a conservative point of view, of the postwar constitution, I recommend (and quoted from) Kataoka Tetsuya’s The Price of a Constitution: The Origin of Japan’s Postwar Politics (New York: Crane Russak, 1991). Chalmers Johnson’s MITI and the Japanese Miracle (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982) is good on the postwar economy. And for documentation I was helped greatly by Japan: A Documentary History (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), by David J. Lu.
There is much, much more, of course. Great and scholarly works have been left out of this summary list, but I have confined myself to the books that were of particular use to me in writing my short history. I can only hope this has the effect of an hors d’oeuvre, which might whet the appetite for richer courses to come.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IAN BURUMA studied and worked in Japan for many years. He is the author of Bad Elements, The Missionary and the Libertine, Anglomania, A Japanese Mirror, God’s Dust, The Wages of Guilt, and Playing the Game. He lives in London.
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