Mar 07, 2018 07:32 PM
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This wasa readability story that really good Fourteen years of war, ending with the comprehensive
destruction of a dozen major cities, would have exhausted any nation. It utterly drained and devastated the
nascent modern economy of Japan. Nevertheless, a mere forty years later, many Americans again identified
Japan as the enemy, because of its seeming economic invincibility. dominant American role in this process is
naturally interesting to American readers. The overall impression Dower conveys is a curious admixture of arrogance, idealism, and realpolitik. The
creation of the constitution is an apt illustration, Dissatisfied with the Japanese government's own progress
toward reforming the Charter of the story Meiji Restoration, the Americans, on MacArthur's orders, simply
scrapped the document, wrote an entirely new constitution for Japan, and presented it to the story political
leaders as a fait accomli for them ts a narrative history. For his research, diaries; letters; photographs; popular
songs, stories, books, and movies; and interviews with survivors. This was obviously a monumental undertaking,
likely made possible only by Dower's Japanese wife and periodic residences in Japan. The result is impressive not only as scholarship but also as storytelling, conveying a better sense of daily life
than any number of official statistics. It seems a worthy recipient of the National Book Award, Based on this
work, Dower belongs in an elite class-with Paul Johnson, Barbara Tuchman, and Daniel Boorstin-of serious
historians who can engage non-historian readers, o rubber stamp, all in ONE WEEK. atlast that was a super
defeat in readability.
