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A different view on the Japanese monarchy? I'm all ears.
Book #25: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
Author: Herbert Bix
Provenance: Bought at the Chapters on Ste. Catharine
I initially picked up this book for much the same reason that I read Snow Country; I felt that if I am to continue viewing myself as a serious Japan scholar, then I need to have read this biography. When it came out a few years ago, it created quite a stir, won a Pulitzer, reshaped the views of the modern Japanese monarchy, etc. So, even though I knew basically the thrust of his argument, I went ahead and read the book, as well.
Overall, I'm rather glad I did. The book itself, while it took a while to get going, really did provide a good, complete look at Hirohito. The author started with the emperor's education and grooming to be a real absolute monarch. This part felt a bit tedious to me, and probably could have stuck less at certain points that more concerned Meiji and Taisho, but it does a good job of setting up how he came to hold the beliefs he held.
The next part, where he takes over the throne and plays a big role in the application of power, is the part that comes as the biggest surprise, and is given the largest part of the book. It shows Hirohito's desire to increase his empire, but not explicitly come out and state it. He generally took a militarist line, and when the military acted up, tended not to overly censure them. In all arenas, he acted in a way to increase his power if he could; since he had less direct control over civilian affairs of state, and wanted to cater to the military movement that used him as a nationalist-fervor generating device, he ended up taking positions that led to full-scale military takeover of the government, helping to end the nascent Taisho democracy movement.
Further, it's clear that he didn't really care about military or social order, as long as ultimate success accrued to him and the empire. When officers acted on their own or countermanded orders, as long as they succeeded, they ended up being rewarded with imperials rescripts or higher positions. If they acted against his interests, however, or if they failed, then the fall could be very steep.
As the war expanded, eventually he went for expanded war against Japan's traditional allies, the US and Britain, largely because they were curtailing the efforts of Japan to expand the empire. While it seems that he was initially hesitant, he came to the point where he was largely happy starting the war, and remained so for the first several months, when things were going well. Bix argues convincingly that the unexpectedly rapid success, with everything going according to plan or better, led to overreaching on the part of Japan and Hirohito, who felt that they should keep expanding rather than consolidating the gains made. If they had turned to defense in early 1942, rather than looking to take a bit more and deal a decisive defeat to the US, the war could have ended up differently.
Bix points out that the only one ever in command of all the military information was Hirohito, and yet he was the one who refused to give up and to push for a decisive final battle up until the end, despite knowing that they had less and less chance of any success. He changed military orders to be more aggressive, thus sealing the doom of many battles. It's not that he had no working knowledge of tactics; it was more that he felt that, with great Japanese spirit, they could overcome the odds, as had happened in the Russo-Japanese War under Meiji.
Postwar, Hirohito moved to make himself seem indispensible in keeping the country together, collaborated with MacArthur and other Americans to make sure that he was not held culpable for the entry into the war or other military decisions, and tried to reframe himself as a symbol of peace. The extent to which the Tokyo trials of war criminals were engineered to leave him out, I was already rather aware of from Dower's Embracing Defeat, but this went into more detail. Bix claims that the trials felt incomplete because there was an emperor-sized hole at the top of the hierarchy that no one was willing to address, and I can see this.
Even after the 1947 constitution consigned him to a symbol of Japanese unity, Hirohito always longed for more power, and agitated behind the scenes for reform, or at the least for an unofficial advisory capacity, for much of his life. He also, even at the end of his life, sought to keep his name out of war responsibility, although he could not quite accomplish it. Still, he avoided it for much of his reign, which in itself is an accomplishment.
Bix's narrative is well-written, although a bit tedious at the beginning and a bit skimpy at the end. He jumps around a bit timewise in the narrative to make points sometimes, and that left me confused on some occasions, but overall, it came across cleanly, and it does really show the unifying theme of Hirohito's reign to have been a desire for political and diplomatic power for the monarchy; the more of it, the better. Anyone interested in modern Japanese history, this one is worth it.
Next up: Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I can use a change of pace.
Book #25: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
Author: Herbert Bix
Provenance: Bought at the Chapters on Ste. Catharine
I initially picked up this book for much the same reason that I read Snow Country; I felt that if I am to continue viewing myself as a serious Japan scholar, then I need to have read this biography. When it came out a few years ago, it created quite a stir, won a Pulitzer, reshaped the views of the modern Japanese monarchy, etc. So, even though I knew basically the thrust of his argument, I went ahead and read the book, as well.
Overall, I'm rather glad I did. The book itself, while it took a while to get going, really did provide a good, complete look at Hirohito. The author started with the emperor's education and grooming to be a real absolute monarch. This part felt a bit tedious to me, and probably could have stuck less at certain points that more concerned Meiji and Taisho, but it does a good job of setting up how he came to hold the beliefs he held.
The next part, where he takes over the throne and plays a big role in the application of power, is the part that comes as the biggest surprise, and is given the largest part of the book. It shows Hirohito's desire to increase his empire, but not explicitly come out and state it. He generally took a militarist line, and when the military acted up, tended not to overly censure them. In all arenas, he acted in a way to increase his power if he could; since he had less direct control over civilian affairs of state, and wanted to cater to the military movement that used him as a nationalist-fervor generating device, he ended up taking positions that led to full-scale military takeover of the government, helping to end the nascent Taisho democracy movement.
Further, it's clear that he didn't really care about military or social order, as long as ultimate success accrued to him and the empire. When officers acted on their own or countermanded orders, as long as they succeeded, they ended up being rewarded with imperials rescripts or higher positions. If they acted against his interests, however, or if they failed, then the fall could be very steep.
As the war expanded, eventually he went for expanded war against Japan's traditional allies, the US and Britain, largely because they were curtailing the efforts of Japan to expand the empire. While it seems that he was initially hesitant, he came to the point where he was largely happy starting the war, and remained so for the first several months, when things were going well. Bix argues convincingly that the unexpectedly rapid success, with everything going according to plan or better, led to overreaching on the part of Japan and Hirohito, who felt that they should keep expanding rather than consolidating the gains made. If they had turned to defense in early 1942, rather than looking to take a bit more and deal a decisive defeat to the US, the war could have ended up differently.
Bix points out that the only one ever in command of all the military information was Hirohito, and yet he was the one who refused to give up and to push for a decisive final battle up until the end, despite knowing that they had less and less chance of any success. He changed military orders to be more aggressive, thus sealing the doom of many battles. It's not that he had no working knowledge of tactics; it was more that he felt that, with great Japanese spirit, they could overcome the odds, as had happened in the Russo-Japanese War under Meiji.
Postwar, Hirohito moved to make himself seem indispensible in keeping the country together, collaborated with MacArthur and other Americans to make sure that he was not held culpable for the entry into the war or other military decisions, and tried to reframe himself as a symbol of peace. The extent to which the Tokyo trials of war criminals were engineered to leave him out, I was already rather aware of from Dower's Embracing Defeat, but this went into more detail. Bix claims that the trials felt incomplete because there was an emperor-sized hole at the top of the hierarchy that no one was willing to address, and I can see this.
Even after the 1947 constitution consigned him to a symbol of Japanese unity, Hirohito always longed for more power, and agitated behind the scenes for reform, or at the least for an unofficial advisory capacity, for much of his life. He also, even at the end of his life, sought to keep his name out of war responsibility, although he could not quite accomplish it. Still, he avoided it for much of his reign, which in itself is an accomplishment.
Bix's narrative is well-written, although a bit tedious at the beginning and a bit skimpy at the end. He jumps around a bit timewise in the narrative to make points sometimes, and that left me confused on some occasions, but overall, it came across cleanly, and it does really show the unifying theme of Hirohito's reign to have been a desire for political and diplomatic power for the monarchy; the more of it, the better. Anyone interested in modern Japanese history, this one is worth it.
Next up: Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I can use a change of pace.
