Popular impressions of the imperial Japanese army still promote
images of suicidal banzai charges and fanatical leaders blindly
devoted to their emperor. Edward Drea looks well past those
stereotypes to unfold the more complex story of how that army came
to power and extended its influence at home and abroad to become
one of the world's dominant fighting forces. This first
comprehensive English-language history of the Japanese army traces
its origins, evolution, and impact as an engine of the country's
regional and global ambitions and as a catalyst for the
militarization of the Japanese homeland from mid-nineteenth-century
incursions through the end of World War II. Demonstrating his
mastery of Japanese-language sources, Drea explains how the
Japanese style of warfare, burnished by samurai legends, shaped the
army, narrowed its options, influenced its decisions, and made it
the institution that conquered most of Asia. He also tells how the
army's intellectual foundations shifted as it reinvented itself to
fulfill the changing imperatives of Japanese society-and how the
army in turn decisively shaped the nation's political, social,
cultural, and strategic course. Drea recounts how Japan devoted an
inordinate amount of its treasury toward modernizing,
professionalizing, and training its army—which grew larger, more
powerful, and politically more influential with each passing
decade. Along the way, it produced an efficient military schooling
system, a well-organized active duty and reserve force, a
professional officer corps that thought in terms of regional
threat, and well-trained soldiers armed with appropriate weapons.
Encompassing doctrine, strategy, weaponry, and civil-military
relations, Drea's expert study also captures the dominant
personalities who shaped the imperial army, from Yamagata Aritomo,
an incisive geopolitical strategist, to Anami Korechika, who
exhorted the troops to fight to the death during the final days of
World War II. Summing up, Drea also suggests that an army that
places itself above its nation's interests is doomed to failure.
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