Japan in War and Peace

Selected Essays

“Powerful, evenhanded, and crystalline essays.” —Publishers Weekly

Drawing on decades of experience and research, John W. Dower, author of the award-winning War Without Mercy, highlights for the first time the resemblances between wartime, postwar, and contemporary Japan. He argues persuasively that the origins of many of the institutions responsible for Japan's dominant position in today’s global economy derive from the rapid military industrialization of the 1930s, and not from the post-occupation period, as many have assumed. A brilliant lead essay, “The Useful War,” sets the tone for the volume by incisively showing how much of Japan’s postwar political and economic structure was prefigured in the wartime organization of that country.

Praise

“Here, Dower offers a collection of essays on Japan and its complex relations with the U.S. over the past half century.”
Kirkus Reviews

Books by John W. Dower

Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering
Japan in the Modern World

John W. Dower

Goodreads Reviews