An Inconvenient History: Japan's Dark Shadow on Asia
Charles Park
(This part is the review I put up on Goodreads.)
The book is about Japan and some very horrible things it did to people during World War II including massacres, Unit 731 and comfort women, among others, and how Japan has never really dealt with what they did in a really proper manner.
The book basically goes into the entire history of Japan, even before it was actually a country called Japan, its relationships to other countries through time, the country's overall psychologically approach to other countries, the various wars it was involved in (especially World War II), how it dominated other countries via invasion, Bushido and how Japan has been turning to the right and not really dealing with the very bad things they did in the past.
It's probably the most complex Charles Rivers Editors book I have read.
So, positive: the depth of coverage of the issue of Japan's reluctance to apologize in an effective manner to the people of the countries it dominated.
Negative: It's too repetitive on its themes. It keeps hammering over and over the Japanese not dealing with its past relative the comfort women and other topics. We get the message clearly early on.
The part below is material I want to add. It would have made the original Goodreads review too long.
Some other main points of the book:
The invasion of Asia by the Japanese led them to look down on the other countries, to them justifying their superiority in taking over the countries.
First Sino-Japanese war: The Japanese murdered some 60,000 civilians.
The Japanese killed some 36,000 US and UK POWs.
In the 1930's and 1940's the Japanese were responsible for the death of:
10 million Chinese
2 million Indonesians
2 million Vietnamese
1 million Filipinos
80,000 Singapore Civilians
hundreds of thousands in Taiwan, Korea and other places.
1.7 million Japanese soldiers died.
The Nanjing Massacre.
Decapitation contest.
Tens of thousands of rapes.
Unit 731.
Unit 1644.
Japan used poison gas.
Japan draftees 207,000 Taiwan men to fight for them. 30,000 of those died.
Japan banned national flags and songs.
Death rates in POW camps: 30% percent in Japanese-run camps. Less than 5% in camped run by Nazis. (This does not, of course, count the Holocaust deaths.)
Japanese people feel they have already paid the price of the war they started due how many of their soldiers died, how many civilians died in fire-bomb raids and how many civilians died due to the two atomic bombs.
How the Emperor became the supreme ruler.
Hirohito was 'overwhelmed by delight and euphoria' due to early Japanese victories.
Schools became military training camps.
Okinawa: 110,000 Japanese soldiers died and 150,000 civilians died.
In the Tokyo trial there were 28 tried. 7 were hung. 16 were given life sentences.
Some Japanese soldiers committed cannibalism.
10% of those who died in the atomic bombing were forced Korean workers.
Japanese textbooks are downplaying the atrocities committed by the Japanese military.
(Throwing this in here: while the book covers the failure of Japan to really apologize for the atrocities they committed, as far as I know people like Wernher von Braun who designed the V-2 rockets never apologized for the British and other deaths his rocket caused.)
Japan has a declining, older population.
The U.S. apologized for having the Japanese-American internment camps. Pope John Paul II apologized for the role of the Catholic Church.
One thing that I am somewhat confused about is exactly what kind of apology is wanted? I know reparations are expected and some were given but given years later. Prime Ministers have apologized and one of the Emperors did apologize. One of the things that Japanese need to do is to stop visiting the Yasukini Shrine as it bascially glorifies Japanese military history.
Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page
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