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Emperor Hirohito reigned for more than sixty years, yet we know little about him or the part he really played in the turbulent history of Showa Japan. Stephen Large draws on a wide range of Japanese and Western sources in his study of Emperor Hirohito's political role in Showa Japan (1926-89). This analysis focuses on key events in his career such as the extent to which he bore responsibility for Japanese aggression in the Pacific in 1941, and explains why Hirohito remains such a contested symbol in Japanese post war politics.
A sweeping yet intimate portrait of World War II’s legacy in Japan Showa 1944-1953: A History of Japan continues Eisner award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki's historical and autobiographical account of Japanese life in the twentieth century. In this volume, the tail-end of the Pacific War and its devastating consequences upon the author and his compatriots loom large. Two rival navies engage in a deadly game of feint and thrust, waging a series of ruthless military campaigns across the Pacific islands. From Guadalcanal to Okinawa, Japan slowly loses ground. When the United States unleashes the atomic bomb–then still a new and now enduringly terrible weapon–it is the ultimate, definitive blow. The catastrophic fallout from both explosions surpasses the limits of popular imagination. Mizuki's own life is irrevocably changed in the shadow of history. After losing an arm during his time in service, the author struggles to forge a path into the future. Should he remain on the island of Rabaul as an honored friend of the local Tolai? Or should he return to the rubble of Japan and return to his earliest artistic inclinations? This penultimate installment of a landmark series is a searing condemnation of war, told with the deft hand of Japan's most celebrated cartoonist.
Japan's momentous Showa era began in 1926, when Emperor Hirohito ascended the throne, and ended with his death in 1989. This was a tumultuous period in modern Japanese history--a time of great disaster and tremendous triumph for Japan. This book focuses on the post-war period in Japan when the nation stood at the zenith of her economic power. Today, the term Showa is shorthand for a glamorous period in which, all too briefly, Japan was the richest nation on earth and the envy of the developed world. A growing nostalgia for this period is now memorialized in Japan in a national holiday. It was an era of stratospheric growth which saw Japan's transition from an isolated, impoverished nation to a peaceful one holding an exalted position as the world's second largest economy. But what is the true meaning of the Showa era, and what is its legacy for the Japanese today? In Showa Japan, Hans Brinckmann provides a clear-eyed exploration of the Showa period as it really was--not just a time of wondrous change but of wild excesses that would eventually come crashing down with the bursting of Japan's economic bubble--exactly as occurred in the rest of the world, but almost 20 years earlier! From the heights of extravagance to the lean years that followed, Brinkmann, a long-time resident of Japan, examines the impact of the Showa era and its aftermath on every aspect of Japanese society. Featuring dozens of period photographs, interviews, and a wealth of factual information and personal reflections, this book provides an in-depth portrait of a Japan that once was--as well as a blueprint for one that might still be, if only the lessons of the past could be learned.
Tegneserie - graphic novel. A autobiographical and historical account of Showa-era Japan
This is a most important new work on Emperor Hirohito by one of Japan’s leading historians, Ikuhiko Hata. Following the untimely death of Marius B. Jansen (Emeritus Professor, University of Princeton) in December 2000, who had been actively collaborating with the author and translator of the original Japanese edition (Hirohito Tenno itsutsu no ketsudan, first published in 1987 and republished in 1994), it was inevitable that there would be a delay in publication of the English edition, which is finally now available. In his extended Foreword as editor, referring to the nature of Hirohito’s power, Jansen states: ‘We are left with puzzles that will probably never be resolved. Clearly, as Professor Hata and others have shown, the Emperor Hirohito had immense power, but the condition of retaining it was judicious restraint in exercising it.’ In offering a view on the merits of Hata’s research, Jansen points to the hitherto unknown plots (in parallel but unrelated) by both the Army and Navy to preserve, and if necessary resuscitate, the imperial line in the event the victors decided to depose Hirohito. Jansen also points to the merits of Hata’s particular focus on the contribution Hirohito made to Japan in its post-war relations with the United States. Jansen added substantive notes to help place the author’s material in historical and historiographical perspective. The book, which is not a biography or a general history of the Showa era, focuses on five decisions taken by Emperor Hirohito, which the author considers the key turning points of his reign: these concern the 26 February 1936 insurrection of young army officers, the termination of the Pacific War, the post-war constitution, the issue of abdication and the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
A master cartoonist and war vet details Japan's involvement in World War II Showa 1939-1944: A History of Japan continues award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki’s autobiographical and historical account of Showa era Japan. This volume covers the final moments of the lead-up to World War Two and the first few years of the Pacific War; it is a chilling reminder of the harshness of life in Japan during this highly militarized epoch. In Showa 1939-1944, Mizuki writes affectingly about the impact on the Japanese populace of world-changing moments including the devastating Second Sino-Japanese War, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the first half of the Pacific War. On a personal level, these years mark a dramatic transformation in Mizuki’s life, too – his idyllic childhood in the countryside comes to a definitive end when he’s drafted into the army and shipped off to the tiny island of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. His life becomes a constant struggle for survival, not only against the constant Allied attacks but because he must face the harsh discipline of the Japanese army officers. During his time in Rabaul, Mizuki comes to understand the misery and beauty of the island itself—a place that will permanently mark him and haunt him for the rest of his life. Translated from the Japanese by Zack Davisson.
The death of Emperor Hirohito marked the end of Japan's Showa era. This collection of original essays on Japan's history and culture in the 20th century provides a mix of American and Japanese perspectives on Showa. It explores the strengths of the Japanese economy, the issue of democracy and Japan's political culture, Japan's achievements in technology and the arts and its relationship with other nations and the United States.
Inspired by the work of an earlier generation of Japanese photographers, especially by Shomei Tomatsu, and by William Klein's seminal photographic book on New York, Daido Moriyama moved from Osaka to Tokyo in the early sixties to become a photographer. He became the leading exponent of a fierce new photographic style that corresponded perfectly to the abrasive and intense climate of Tokyo during a period of great social upheaval. His black and white pictures were marked by fierce contrast and fragmentary, even scratched, frames, which concealed his virtuoso printing. Between June 1972 and July 1973 he produced his own magazine publication, Kiroku, which was then referred to as Record. It became a diaristic journal of his work as it developed. Ten years ago he was able to resume publication of Record, which gradually expanded in extent. To date he has published thirty issues, a number of them including colour. The publication of Record as a book enables work from all thirty issues to be edited into a single sequence, punctuated by Moriyama's own text as it appeared in the magazines. It used to be assumed that Moriyama's peculiarly Japanese style was tied to his Tokyo roots. The evidence of the last ten years demonstrates that Moriyama, a restless world traveller, has been able to apply his unique vision to northern Europe, southern France, the cities of Florence, London, Barcelona, Taipei, Hong Kong, New York and Los Angeles as well as to the alleys of Osaka, and the landscape of Hokkaido. The book ends in Afghanistan.
Ten Years in Japan is a fascinating and unique look inside the government of Japan before and during the attack on Pearl Harbour. Written from the detailed personal diaries of Joseph C. Grew the American ambassador based in Tokyo from 1932 and up until war was declared in the beginning of 1942. This book deals, as is right and proper, primarily with American-Japanese relations. But for British readers it has a special interest because it covers a period during which British and American policies in the Orient followed parallel lines; a period when the two Governments were grappling with problems always similar and sometimes identical. The interest is not lessened by the peeps that we get of what were, in fact, unremitting efforts on the part of the Japanese to sow discord between Britain and America on the principle of 'divide et impera.'