The predominant line of thought amongst the Americans was that it would be best to condemn Tojo and preserve the figurehead of the Emperor to hold the nation together, for fear that doing away with the imperial system would be too great a shock to the Japanese. Yet the relationship of the Emperor Hirohito to the militaristic leaders of Japan was far more complex than might be initially suspected. Dower suggests that the Emperor was far more complicit in wartime actions than has been portrayed in the past, and that Japan's democratic tradition before the dominance of the military took hold of the government was and has been overlooked. The Japanese intellectuals who were embittered by the eventual system enforced by the Americans raged that rather than a true democracy, what came into being was "a charade" and instead of revolutionizing the Japanese consciousness the Americans merely set about reinforcing a colonial mentality (Dower 72).
Some real strides were made in undoing the damage that had been done over the years of military rule. Freedom of the press was now enshrined in law. Furthermore, women were given the right to vote. But democratization was not absolute -- all anti-American, including many leftist dissident voices were purged from the institutions of government. However, Americans tended to ignore the impositonal aspects of their rule and the Japanese, on the surface, complied with this notion rather than resisted. They seemed to accept this 'gift' of democracy, along with gifts of American cigarettes and chocolate. However, the genuine feelings of the Japanese people bubbling beneath the surface were far more pluralistic. In Dower's phrase, many different 'cultures of defeat' existed, including leftist, Marxist resistance.
Ultimately, far from being a pure force of democracy, contrary...
World War II Japan's wars of aggression and conquest began long before the fascist takeover of the 1930s and the alliance with Nazi Germany in 1940, and the idea that the Japanese were a superior race also had a long pedigree -- as indeed did the Nordic-Aryan racism of the Nazis. Both used the tactics of blitzkrieg and surprise to end up in control of most of Europe and Asia by
All because of a racially fueled hatred that exaggerated the nature of the merciless war. This image of the cruelty and heartless Japanese is what eventually allowed the American people and government to justify the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The racist attitudes clearly clouded the United State's commitment to defending Democracy, both abroad and within its own borders. One of the worst examples of this merciless prejudice was
War and Occupation: The Effects of the U.S. Occupation on Japan's Government and Politics The recent change in the American foreign policy direction which has seen the replacement of its traditional anti-colonialist tilt by the neo-conservative belief of guided nation building evokes a lot of interest in the history of United State's occupation of post world war II Japan. Although each such occupation is different -- the political, social and cultural
Essay Topic Examples 1. The Role of Propaganda in Shaping Perceptions of the Enemy: This essay would explore how propaganda was used by both the United States and Japan to dehumanize the enemy and rally public support for the war effort. The discussion would include an examination of various propaganda tools, such as posters, films, and cartoons, and an analysis of how these mediums contributed to the racial hatred and
War Without Mercy John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. Pantheon, 1987. John W. Dower is a professor of Japanese history who received his Ph.D. In History and Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University in 1972 and has written extensively about popular culture in his scholarly work on Japanese and U.S. foreign relations history, including books such as Empire and Aftermath, Japan in War and Peace,
War "Studs Terkel's: The Good War In The Good War Terkel presents the compelling, the bad, and the ugly memories of World War II from a view of forty years of after the events. No matter how horrendous the recollections are, comparatively only a few of the interviewees said that if the adventure never happened that they would be better off. It was a lively and determinative involvement in their lives.
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