An anthropologist's clear-eyed appreciation of how Japan's military
- justly famed as a chivalrous ally and adversary in the Asiatic
conflicts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - became a
bestial rabble-in-arms that committed unspeakable atrocities during
WW II. Drawing largely on secondary sources, Edgerton (UCLA School
of Medicine; The Fall of the Asante Empire, 1995, etc.) produces an
engrossing narrative that traces the development of the island
nation's armed forces from the Meiji Restoration to the present
day. Having provided a brief rundown on the country's
bushido/samurai tradition, he documents the accomplishments of
Japan's modern army and navy in belligerencies ranging from the
Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 through the Boxer Rebellion, the
savage Russo-Japanese War, and WW I (in which Japan was allied with
western Europe). Along the way, the author provides vivid examples
of the knightly way in which the emperor's warriors went about
their grim business. Edgerton goes on to document the corrosive
effect on Japan's military of America's racist immigration
policies, the emergence of ultranationalist fanatics within the
ruling class, and the economic pressures endured by an insular
industrial power almost entirely lacking in natural resources.
These and other factors, he argues, help explain the horrific
barbarities Japan's brutal, fanatic soldiery committed against
helpless civilians, POWs, and wounded foes throughout East Asia
from the early 1930s through the harsh reckoning of V-J day. In the
author's mind, however, the issue of whether the nation's
self-defense force will evolve into a guarantor of the peace in its
volatile region or revert to the unholy practices that resulted in
WW II's unconditional surrender remains a very open question. An
incisive account of a consequential state's use and abuse of
military power. (Kirkus Reviews)
A penetrating history of how the Japanese army, once admired for its chivalry, became a legion of brutality and atrocity.
During World War II, many of Japan's soldiers committed such crimes against humanity that the world recoiled in horror. During the notorious six-week-long "rape of Nanking" in 1937, Japanese forces murdered at least 200,000 men, women, and children. Throughout the Pacific War, Allied prisoners were often starved, tortured, beheaded, even cannibalized. Although Japan's military men fought bravely and with resolve against overwhelming numbers again and again, their astonishing brutality made them a loathsome, unforgivable enemy.
While this chapter of Japanese history is well known, few realize that earlier in this century the Japanese were celebrated throughout the West for chivalry in warfare. During the Boxer Rebellion in China and the savage Russo-Japanese War of 19045, the Western press lauded the Japanese for their kindness to the enemy wounded and imprisoned.
Warriors of the Rising Sun chronicles the Japanese military's transformation from honorable "knights of Bushido" into men of historic cruelty.
Author of over twenty books on sociology and anthropology, Robert Edgerton teaches at the UCLA School of Medicine. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
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