The Pacific War, 1931-1945 : A Critical Perspective on Japan's Role in World War II

by Saburo Ienaga

A portrayal of how and why Japan waged war from 1931-1945 and what life was like for the Japanese people in a society engaged in total war.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: History, Japan, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Military History, Asia

374 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Saburo Ienaga was a Japanese historian famous for controversies regarding school history textbooks. In 1953, the Japanese Ministry of Education published a textbook by Ienaga, but censored what they said were factual errors and matters of opinion, regarding Japanese war crimes. Ienaga undertook a series of law suits against the Ministry for violation of his freedom of speech. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 and 2001 by Noam Chomsky among others

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ruling elite needs a modern school system to get its message across. Even after 1945, the Japanese public was only aware of the fight against the Nationalists. It wasn't the only caveat in the curriculum after the American Caesar. As an Estonian reviewer noted: "However, this book is more importantly, a tribute to its author, Japanese historian, Saburo Ienaga. Much of his professional career, [he] fought the Japanese government’s attempt to block his critical writings on the history of modern Japan."*

This desire for Mea Culpa leads to some odd conclusions, for example: "the Chinese Communist Party proved that in a national crisis only democracy can inspire patriotism... and galvanize it into fighting power against aggression. While he also credits the U.S.A on this, the revamped Russian patriotism of summer '41 has escaped his attention.

Looking inward, his frank language deserves to be remembered: It is no exaggeration to call the greater Japanese Empire a Kafka state, dedicated to the abuse of human rights. . The underlying psychology is pretty universal: plenty of opportunistic little dictators, whose underlings sought release through cruelty in battle.

On the other hand, the "Banzai !" rallying cry goes the way of "For Stalin!". The final word on many a soldier's lips was "Okasan - Mother. This fits together with a young Marine's involuntary pity when he discovers upon the corpse of a bullet-ridden Jap in front of his position a studio portrait between two somber-looking parents**. As the father of a farmer draftee grumbled:
"No matter how many other countries we occupy, it doesn't add one inch to my paddy fields. There's nothing as stupid as war." The parents who evacuated their children out of the firebombed cities to the dispersed safety of the countryside would agree with him.

Nothing as stupid on imperialist war, at least. The Japanese government under oil embargo saw things differently at the time and Ienaga acknowledges that the Pacific attack was all about securing sufficient oil sources to fuel victory in Eastern China. Win fast or hold the perimeter long enough...depending on the person defeat was probable or the chances small, but an underestimate of American military potential common. These are well-established facts for the Western reader, maybe less so in '60's Japan ?

The reality was hidden..almost. The vastness of the Chinese mainland seemed to swallow the Imperial Army, as an anonymous graffiti testifies. Pacific reverses carried the whiff of defeat. Not until after the war could NCO Yoshida Kashichi publish his "Poems from the battle of Guadalcanal":

No matter how far we walk
We don't know where we're going
Trudging along under dark jungle growth.

When will this march end ?
Hide during the day
Move at night
Deep in the lush jungle

Our rice is gone
Eating roots and grass
Along the ridges and cliffs
Leaves hide the trail, we lose our way
Stumble and get up, fall and get up

Covered with mud from our falls
Blood oozes from our wounds
No cloth to bind our cuts
Flies swarm to the scabs
No strength to brush them away
Fall down and cannot move.
How many times I've thought of suicide


Either way, the chronicle of the campaign is short. The battle facts are not under scrutiny, but the atrocities in the wake are. Once again, I call occasional hyperbole "The comfort women were brought right to the front lines for fornication between combat operations and apparently many were killed in the fighting..." mixed with an interesting phrase for gender studies: " Prositution is by its very nature a violation of women's rights to a decent occupation"

More pedestrian misbehaviour caused no less hardship: Filipino sugar plantations converted to cotton, Indonesian rice fields to jute, indispensible draft buffaloes were shot for fun and their rice requisitioned in such quantities that it rotted in the warehouse. Forced labour could be farcical:
"As the war situation grew worse, the mobilization degenerated into abduction. Men travelling on the road near Nankuan were forcibly stopped and loaded onto waiting trucks. Some were taken by the hands and feet and thrown bodily up into the vehicles. These hapless victims included persons who had just come in from the country to buy something and men returning from a visit with friends. One young man was to be married the next day and had just stepped out to make a purchase. " In case you wonder where, amidst this litany in Korea & China, the infamous biochemical research program of Unit 731 is, look a chapter ahead, where it's linked to the 1948 Teikoku bank robbery.

Regarding resistance, there is little to tell. He lists some forensics into Kempei torture murders and a handful of defectors... " Only the Japanese failed to overthrow the war leadership with their own hands." Compliments to Europe, but he forgets Germany... A fact to verify: 2.3 million combat deaths since the start of the war in China. Since 1931 ? On all fronts ?

*https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
**

[Chin Joo · Rating 3 out of 5]

To many, the Pacific War is geographically limited to the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean, extending furthest south to the Coral Sea and west to the Philippines. It is also chronologically limited to the period between 8th December 1941 and 2nd September 1945. To the Japanese and Chinese however, the Pacific War extends to China and Southeast Asia and started on 18th September 1931, when the Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria. This distinction is important: to many Americans, Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack, requiring a full retaliatory response. To the Japanese, it was the outcome of the sanctions that the USA placed upon them, and having no  way out, they had to attack the USA in the hope they would sue for peace. These sanctions were put in place in step with the escalation of Japan's conquest in China, leading to the most drastic embargo of oil as Japan invaded Indochina, which could be traced back to Japan's actions in China. To the Japanese, the Pacific War is a 15-year war and their ultimate near-devastation is to be traced to 1931, which is why the characters that appear in Japanese and Chinese literature on the war is a lot more colourful and well-developed than the fleeting mention that they get in Western literature.

This book by Saburo Ienaga is a survey of the events leading to Japan's ultimate defeat and the conditions in Japan throughout that period. The author's motivation is to educate the post-war generation about Japan's recent past, and more importantly, to counter the resurgent right-wing narrative in Japan. In doing so, not only did he discuss the military and cabinet decisions, he also provided a view into the controls the military put place to ensure that the populace remained docile and abiding and would not raise any objections to the military's adventures.

In the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, militarism was pervasive and this started to make inroads into schools through systematic perversion of the school curriculum as well as the increase in imperialistic-mindedness of the teachers. There were those who tried to resists, but by 1940, there was largely no more open dissent (pg. 117) and even the "intellectual community not only caved in under pressure but accommodated with alacrity to the new order" (pg. 121). This being the case, and with the constant bombardment of news of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy scoring victories after victories over any adversaries, it became impossible for the Japanese civilian to know the truth.

The author's main concern was that there never seemed to be a time when the post-war Japanese society evaluated Japan's history in the early part of the 20th century. War memories started to fade and there are even signs that the war apologists were beginning to make a come back. Indeed, there were even people who advocated the reassessment the war because excessive emphasis on war responsibility "would produce a guilt-ridden nation," (pg. 253). And as if to prove his point, Inenaga published a draft of a Japanese history textbook for high school based on his New Japanese History. The draft was rejected by the Ministry of Education in 1952 because they did not like the way he depicted certain events, this resulted in him bringing a lawsuit to the ministry.

I cannot claim to be a scholar in Japanese literature on the War, but I observed a few interesting perspectives on Emperor Hirohito from the few works I have read. The right-wing perspective is that the Emperor might have a role in starting the war, but it was a just war and he did the right thing. Among those who disagree with the war and admitted to the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese Army are two different views. One is that the Emperor had no choice and was not really in control of events. Respected academic and author, Kazutoshi Handō is of this opinion. The other perspective, to which this author subscribed, is that the Emperor should bear the responsibilities and at the end of the war, with everyone suffering the most difficult conditions, and the myth of the Emperor shattered, people were ready to indict him had the Allies so decided. Finally, there are those who chose to side-step the role of the Emperor. This is an interesting issue for further exploration and I hope that the book I'm currently reading would help to shed some light.

As a small volume, it is impossible for the author to go into enough details of any events or any aspect of the lives of the Japanese. I started reading the Chinese translation of the book and found it hard, mainly because of the style that I'm not used to. The English translation is much easier to read but seem to lack a certain depth. However, those who are interested in getting one Japanese perspective (a left-leaning one) of the Pacific War will find this book useful.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Japan's role in World War II is pretty hard for an American to understand, given the gap in culture and language between the US and Japan. It is even harder for the Japanese to understand their own war history, given the preference for denial and forgetfulness over enlightenment and remembrance when it comes to WWII. Saburo Ienaga wrote "The Pacific War: 1931-1945" as a reminder of the brutal folly that it was, roughly coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Japan's invasion of China.

Americans date the conflict from Dec. 7, 1941, overlooking the fact that Japan started its Asian expansion at China's expense (again) in 1931. Indeed, China would become to Japan what Russia was to Nazi Germany--an undefeatable sink hole that tied down the bulk of the army for much of the war, long before the Americans entered the picture.

While Ienaga critiques this period from a left-wing point of view, his work is no less valid given his explanation of Japanese culture at the time. Notions of racial/nationalist superiority, coupled with propaganda, compulsory military training, tremendous pressure to conform to society's (ab)norms and unquestioning obedience to authority created a nation psychologically mobilized for war. Leaders were heedless of sacrifice, even willing to fight on regardless of civilian losses at home and military losses abroad.

Japanese culture was so strange to Americans that they might as well have been fighting space aliens. Nothing in American culture could explain the kamikaze, the banzai charge, or the the stubborn willingness to fight to the last man. Death was preferred before dishonor, and nothing was more dishonorable than surrender. Ienaga explains the brutal logic that pounded this faith in the human spirit over material strength, but in the end courage could not stop bullets and shell splinters any better than flesh.

Ienaga traces the trajectory of Japan's fascist failure, starting with the Army invading Manchuria without the knowledge of the civilian leaders back in Tokyo. Democracy is extinguished at home by assassinating moderate leaders, all the while with the Army and Navy exercising a veto over cabinet selection under an authoritarian constitution. Cooler heads could not prevail. Colonies are conquered. Peoples are brutally repressed. Resources are ruthlessly extracted, from Manchuria, Korea, China, and later southeast Asia and the Phillipines. Dissidents are crushed. Ienaga only fits in a chapter about the American War. Much of Japan's war was against China (externally) and any citizens at home who had second thoughts about the war.

Ienaga notes that he wrote his history as a warning, to make sure Japan never again submits meekly to an authoritarian leadership that disregards the welfare of the people in favor of the power of the state. We accept Japan today as a parliamentary democracy, but to Ienaga it is a sham democracy masking one party rule by a seldom elected government. The author wants his countrymen to know better than to go down that path again.

For the American reader, Ienaga provides a cultural explanation that finally makes sense. It is still Japanese, but it is understandable.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm fascinated by all the lies and the way they pile up and pile up. It's like reading about Nixon's administration.

Bits:
"The situation got so bad that even Premier Konoe, who had a good personal relationship with the military, was reduced to asking the emperor what was going on."

"Although Tojo Hideki was both prime minister and an active duty general, for example, the navy did not inform him of the defeat at Midway till a month later."

A Japanese propaganda campaign in China had the message "Same script, same race. Destroy communism, restore peace."

"Passengers on streetcars were required to stand and bow reverently when passing the Imperial Palace or Yasukuni Shrine. The conductor used to say, 'We are now passing the Imperial Palace. Please bow.'"

In China, "'every single horse fit for army duty has been blinded.'"

On the retreat in China and Korea: "'The Imperial Army's front line troops and the Kempeitai, riding in trucks and ox carts, overtook the (many Japanese) refugees and knocked and kicked them out of the way so they could escape.'"

"The jushin shared Konoe's dread that if the war was not ended, domestic unrest might sweep away the throne and everything else with it. This was their reason for ending the war. Not to save the Japanese people from more allied air raids and naval bombardment; not even to avoid a last-ditch ground battle across the crowded home islands. Japan's leaders showed a supreme indifference to the suffering and despair of the populace to the very end. That callous determination was unshaken by two atomic bombings. The "national polity" took precedence over the people."

Teikoku Bank robbery of 1948 is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadamic...

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Pacific War. I had visions of Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Iwo Jima, and other terrific island campaign battles. Not the case for this book. China is the majority combat subject of this book. Later, the author discusses how the populace was motivated by the ruling military elites, was fed propaganda, and overall a dormant automaton that followed Imperial orders. Also discussed are the few glimmers of protest against a hostile Imperial government. The author discusses why he names this text the Pacific War, but I am not sure I agree about his name choice because of the aforementioned reasons.

What I do like and agree with are his discussion points. The Greater East-Asian War (more fitting name for his book) started in 1931 when Japan took over Manchuria creating the puppet state Manchukuo. At the time of Japan's surrender, Japan had been at war for fifteen years. Our war with Japan was a tiny subset of a very long Japanese war with China. What is also discussed is the hostility and terror the Japanese inflicted upon their new subjects. The claim the Japanese used for fighting against European colonialism was only a façade since all conquered territories simply became Japanese colonies. Very interesting.

I went looking for a book on the Pacific War but found quite a bit more.

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awe-inspiring book. I have read many books about why Japan lost WW2 and none of them go deep enough. Books like Government by Assassination, The Culture of Japanese Fascism, Japan's Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shinto Ultranationalism, and Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy, for example, criticize aspects of Japanese politics that led to the collective misjudgment of Kuomintang military power in 1935-1939 (the key strategic failure that led to the loss of the war), but despite the scandalized, appalled tone of these books, they don't give a rational picture of the systemic origins of this misjudgment. This book goes all the way to the core, and it's presented with extremely well-chosen quotations, knowledgeable summaries, and succinctly recounted personal experiences. It's got the power of 100 books compressed into one readable, crisply written work.

I strongly recommend this book anyone who is familiar with the overall outline of the war but is not clear why Japan took itself on a path towards total annihilation. It will not be comprehensible if you don't know anything about Japan, but if, for example, you have watched the Miyazaki Hayao film The Wind Also Rises and grasp the social currents it discusses, you probably have enough background knowledge to enjoy this book.

If anything, the only shortcoming of the book is that it doesn't go in depth about how difficult it would be to replace the xenophobic current in Japanese society, and why it is different from Western countries where the presumption of "ruthless criticism of all that exists" grows naturally from Cartesian assumptions about the sovereignty of the philosophizing subject. Ienaga writes like an American Protestant, posing the questions of modern values in an extremely straightforward and commonsensical manner as if he has found an Archimedean pivot to judge all Japanese people with, but he is actually at the outer edge of what is acceptable in Japan and probably had to handle many death threats from nationalists for this book. I would recommend reading other books on the challenges faced by the left in Japan, for example Zengakuren: Japan's Revolutionary Students, to get a grasp on the difficulties of civilizational critique and how they manifested when the Left was in power.

By the way, contrary to other reviews, this is not the textbook that was modified by the Japanese Ministry of Culture. That textbook, Shin-Nihonshi, was originally written immediately after World War II, and although it was approved, it became the basis of a lawsuit that aimed to overturn the textbook authorization system through the courts. This book's original title is Taiheiyō Sensō and it was published in the eventful year of 1968. It includes a lot of material about textbooks including Ienaga's critique of the authorization system, but it is not a textbook itself.

[Mbfitzmahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Pacific War, 1931-1945 : A Critical Perspective on Japan's Role in World War II, is an important addition to the study of Japanese history. However, this book is more importantly, a tribute to its author, Japanese historian, Saburo Ienaga. Much of his professional career, Ienaga fought the Japanese government’s attempt to block his critical writings on the history of modern Japan. Ienaga placed the blame for the outbreak of the Pacific War fully at the feet of the Japanese government’s prewar policy to control information. He wrote: “The prewar state kept the populace in a powerful vise: on one side were the internal security laws with their restriction on freedom of speech and thought; on the other side was the conformist education that blocked the growth of free consciousness and purposive activity for political ends.”

Ienaga argued that to avoid the repetition of the sins of the past, each generation must be well educated in uncensored studies of history. I feel that we would all do well to remember this warning. Political massaging of history is not new. In fact, this process of manipulating history is a part of history itself. However, incomplete and biased reporting of history must be viewed for what it is. Gaps in history are as dangerous as fabrications in history. Transparency of information is necessary for good scholarship, for good history and for the advancement of humankind.

[Robert Brightwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first World War II history I have read from a Japanese author and it brings a perspective to the conflict that is missing in western histories. The author's main thesis is that the "Pacific War" is primarily a struggle between Japanese Imperialism and Communism. With this in mind he sees the events in China, particularly in the 1930's, as the most crucial. It is during the discussion of these events the author betrays his sympathies with the Communist cause. Later, as he recounts the limited roll of resistance movements in Japan, he refers almost exclusively to Communist groups as the source of the resistance. In his post war summary his anti-imperial and Communist sympathies are on full display as he expresses his contempt for the United States and it actions during the occupation as well as the US-Japanese military alliance to hedge the expansion of Communism in Asia. The author casts the roll of the US in the post war period as being essentially the same as the Japanese Imperial roll of the 30's and 40's.

[AskHistorians]

A rare translated text by a Japanese historian, showing perspectives of the common Japanese of the war. This book received a fairly controversial reputation in Japan after several attempts by the Ministry of Education to censor certain parts.

[Martin Koenigsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting and eye- opening book. Ienaga is one of the few Japanese historians to fully explore the insanity of the Empire's decision process in sliding into war with essentially every other pacific power- especially the United States- whose industrial power dwarfed it by so much. Today, in 2019, we can see that Combination of Ignorance and Stupidity applied to foreign policy all around us- so this story really resonates. Japan's leaders had taken up a form of Political thought, Fascism, that is particularly well adapted to this mixture of counter productive impulses- and Ienaga shows how wrong they were. And how determined they were to follow their path to its logical conclusion- Isolation, mental illness and ultimate destruction . In doing so he destroys EVERY self justifying argument the Kanoe and Tojo governments developed- showing them to be both false and misguided.

I was a little shocked in the 80s when my father told be that the Whole Pacific War with America- a war he had participated in, landing at Leyte and then as part of the occupation- was really a mere postule on the back of the Japanese War with China- that started in 1931- much as the whole Anti Hitler European war was really subordinate to the Great Patriotic War with Russia. But he was right- and Ienaga proves it in this tome. Unable to win in China- or to think of disengagement- the Japanese felt they had to attack America, the British Empire and especially the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)- or risk the "gains" made in "Conquering China"- the sort of ridiculous, blood-mad cogitation that richly deserves the confounding check it received- and any destruction wrought being overpaid back in a rain of fire and explosives that blackened every city in the home Island chain. It's sort of funny at the later part of the book when Ienaga tries to paint the Atom bombs as "War Crimes" when he's spent over two hundred pages showing why it was more of a application of justice to an International "Mad Dog" regime. One can't have it both ways- although the Japanese Fascists did try.

This book is all about the adult themes of this war- from misguided national pride to "comfort Women"- so its best read by Junior readers over 12-13. For the Gamer/Modeller/Military Enthusiast- not really a good source. The whole anti-America/British Empire war is only really a few pages of one chapter- this book is about the development of the mindset that spawned the war. So better to use this book to develop one's appreciation of Aggressive Death Cults in action- essentially the heart of the Tojo style Fascism- and use other books to learn about Tactics. This is about how insane strategies can be developed by closed and warped societies that self destroy their cultural check and balances- and as such is a really strong cautionary tale. A strong rec to any WWII Pacific Library.

[Mark McTague · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by a historian who lived through this period, The Pacific War 1931-1945 is somewhat misnamed. As the author makes clear, and as the dates in the second half of the title show, Japan's world war experience began in China (Manchuria) and remained focused, in the minds of the military and capitalist elites, on China; moreover, Japan had been at war there off and on since 1931, and in a concerted and large-scale way since 1937, four years before Pearl Harbor. Japan came late to the game of empire, but having modernized its industry and governmental bureaucracy beginning in the Meiji era (1868-1912), and having seen clearly what England and Germany were doing in China (exploitative trade), the Dutch in Indonesia, and the U.S. in the Philippines, they saw no reason why Japan should not become an empire like the others. The army and navy's victories in the Sino-Japanese war (1894-95) and a decade later the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05), which were both over the control of Korea, ended with the complete annexation of that nation to Japan in 1910. Although Japan's civilian government remained in titular control of the country, as the 1920s passed, political power shifted to the military, which gained effective control of the government at least as early as 1931.

Ienaga thus develops several points in his history: the military's attack on democracy at home, the weakness of Japanese civil society to resist this takeover of political power, the illusion of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the horrors visited not only on China, the Philippines, and Southeast Asian peoples but on the Japanese people as well (civilians and their own military) because of the protracted war. Determined to keep these facts from being forgotten in time, Ienaga pulls no punches in attributing responsibility, yet he also points out that big powers (the British, Germans, Italians, Dutch, and Americans) were involved in empire building, as well. The real enemy, as the text clearly implies, is war itself.

[Chad Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love how Japanese author. Interesting bits here. Went over my head how military/navy developed ‘crazy’ attitude toward war

[Kentucky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: This is a book review done for a historiography class in college, thus, it covers specific topics for a grade. This is, however, my actual opinion of the book.

With only a beginner-level knowledge of the Pacific War and Japan’s relationship with other Asian nations, I found Saburō Ienaga’s book; The Pacific War, 1931-1945, to be an illustrative introduction to the complex relationship between Japan and war. Ienaga’s book works not only to educate readers on the motivations for the Pacific War but argues that this war provides lessons that must be carried into the future. Ienaga emphasizes early and often that the purpose of his book is not to determine what Japan could have done to win the Pacific War, but rather, what led up to the war, why the war persisted, and why a similar war must never occur again. Each chapter in The Pacific War, 1931-1945 builds upon this argument by dissecting an element of Japan’s governmental, social, and militaristic worlds, small components that all merge into one picture. One condition to keep in mind while reading The Pacific War, 1931-1945 is that Ienaga has personal experience with many of the events described in the book. Though Ienaga states early that he will not be covering elements outside his expertise and that will avoid using personal anecdotes as part of his evidence, it is also important to consider the author’s perspective before reading.
Ienaga’s preface establishes the historical context in which Ienaga is writing, describing his background as a researcher and his own experience during the Pacific War. In it, he also introduces the language that he will be using to describe events in the book, such as the distinction between the “Fifteen-Year War”, “World War II” and the “Greater East Asian War”, ultimately settling on the “Pacific War”. The preface is also where readers can first glimpse Ienaga’s primary thesis, that being that the Pacific War and Japan’s history with Asian nations must be acknowledged in order to repair nation relations and prevent future conflict. To start his book, Ienaga divides The Pacific War, 1931-1945 into two parts, one dedicated to analyzing why the war was not prevented, and the other inspecting the content of the war and its subsequential consequences. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 make up this first section.
Chapter 1; Misconceptions About China and Korea describes the societal, economic, and oftentimes racist relationships Japan had with Korea and China. Ienaga analyzes Japan’s reasons for acquiring Korean and Chinese territory, one being to prevent further Western imperialization from influencing East Asian nations, another being the growing nationalism in Japan that dictated the way Japan perceived other nations. The mistreatment of Koreans and the Tawainese at home and in Japan is also introduced in this chapter, an element that will be further discussed in future sections. Chapter 2; Thought Control and Indoctrination, builds upon the argument of ultra-nationalism in Japan by introducing the various institutional policies that perpetuated loyalty to the Japanese system. The history of Japan’s monarchal system and the Meiji restoration are analyzed through the lens of controlling intellectual freedom of the masses and destroying diverging political beliefs, all of which Ienaga argues was done to prevent antiwar sentiment. Educational control is stressed throughout the chapter, as Ienaga details the various ways that schools taught children to serve the Emperor and prescribe their lives to the betterment of the nation. Chapter 2 expertly uses available knowledge of institutional policies to portray how the Japanese government was able to shape the minds of the public and suppress political freedom. Chapter 3; The Military: Authoritarian and Irrational illustrates the various ways that the Japanese military abused governmental powers, perpetuated oppression, and became a political force in of itself. Harkening back to his arguments in chapter 2, Ienaga ties the world of education to the military, detailing how secondary education was relatively inaccessible for many, with the only option being to join the military. He goes on to describe the complex relationship between the military, government, and schools of Japan, but ultimately argues that the military holds the most authoritative power, capable of making decisions in the name of the emperor.
All of the chapters in part one of The Pacific War, 1931-1945 have the common theme of nationalism influencing the public. This theme can be connected to Masao Maruyama’s research on ultra-nationalism in Japan, specifically Theory and Psychology of Ultra-Nationalism. In sections III and IV of this piece, Maruyama describes the various ways that the Japanese military perpetuated oppression through the ranks, oppression that eventually led to violence against Asian nations, as well as describing the connection the military had with the ideology of the Emperor. It appears that Maruyama’s work on ultra-nationalism as a root cause of the Pacific War was an influence of Ienaga’s work, especially the first part of The Pacific War, 1931-1945, which adamantly argues that nationalism in all sectors of Japanese life impacted the war. In this sense, it is possible to consider Ienaga’s book an extension of Maruyama’s research.
The second part of The Pacific War, 1931-1945 analyzes the various events of the actual war; deciphering Japan’s reasoning for attacking nations, detailing key moments, and examining Japan’s explanation for the war. Chapters 4 and 5; The Beginning: Aggression in China and The War in China: A Clash of Political Values respectively, both detail the initial conflict with China and the eventual progression into war. While describing the events taken by Japan to invade China, Ienaga often states that many of Japan’s practices went against established international and Japanese law. This statement often refers to actions taken by the Kwantung Army and the refusal by the military to punish these offenders. Ienaga also covers the political strife and revivals in China that came out of Japan’s capture of Chinese territories, ultimately arguing that the democratic nature of China’s red armies was key to stopping Japanese expansion. These chapters work to further develop the readers' understanding of Japanese-Chinese relations and explain the economic and militaristic reasons behind Japan’s imperialism. Chapter 6; The War at Home: Democracy Destroyed is a continuation of Japan’s information control, this time analyzing how it affected the home front during the Pacific War. Ienaga emphasizes the censure of news from the public, with only stories of victory and heroism being openly displayed. Another aspect of this chapter that will be further developed in later ones is the role of women who opposed Japan’s nationalism campaign, as many women are depicted as detesting the patriotic rhetoric that stole away their sons. Chapter 7; Japan Extends the War to the Pacific covers a large period of the war, but mainly focuses on Japan’s motives for engaging in conflict with the United States and other western powers. While Ienaga has continuously argued that Japan underestimated China in previous chapters, he also claims that Japan overestimated its allies' ability to fight Western powers. Ienaga claims that Japan had exhausted itself in conflict with China and thus needed to engage in war with the United States and England in order to gather resources. Ultimately, the point of Chapter 7 is to establish that the conflict with China was a key element in Japan’s decision to extend the war west. Chapter 8; The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, analyzes Japan’s claim that its imperialistic expansion was to better East Asian nations and save the people from western servitude. To dispute this concept, Ienaga thoroughly lists Japan’s negative impact on each nation it controlled, claiming that nations suffered from Japan’s expansion. Similarly, Chapter 9; The Horrors of War, further develops Ienaga’s argument against Japan’s Co-Prosperity claim by providing meticulous descriptions of Japan’s crimes against Asian people. Both chapters work to effectively disprove Japan’s justifications for war. Chapter 10; Dissent and Resistance: Change from Within further illustrates forces of protest in Japan by giving numerous examples of both passive and active resistance during the war period. Though a majority of this chapter is devoted to highlighting individuals, Ienaga does state that Japan did not display the same acts of resistance that Germany and Italy had, claiming that this lack of mass dissent allowed the war to continue. Chapter 11; Defeat, much like Chapters 8 and 9, depicts the lasting effects that Japan has left on survivors of the bombs, victims of the military, and victims of the governement. He ultimately argues that while the war may have finished, the effects of it remain today. Both the Conclusion and Ienaga’s note on perspectives in Japan further develop the thesis introduced in Ienaga’s Preface. While Ienaga covers the implications of the United States' impact on Japan, comparing it to Japan's relationship with Manchukuo, Ienaga ultimately concludes that Japan may have needed foreign influence in order to establish a democracy. Ienaga’s thesis reflects itself in the final pages, stating that Japan must learn from its past and never alter the militaristic aspects of its Constitution so that an event like the Pacific War never occurs again. In his note, Ienaga sets up a debate concerning Japan and its want to forget the past. The note addressing Japan’s textbook issue not only develops Ienaga’s thesis of education and acknowledgment but also propels the discussion for historians like Hatano Sumio and Jeff Kingston, who claim that Japan’s revisionist agenda harms the nation and its relations. Conclusively, Ienaga’s work has further developed the understanding of nationalism in pre and post-war Japan while creating a space for future historians to dedicate research to Japan’s relationship with history.
I believe that The Pacific War 1931-1945 is an excellent introductory resource for readers with little to no background knowledge of the Pacific War while also contributing more to the debate surrounding Japan and its acknowledgment of history. While the book at times feels like a drawn-out account of historical events, Ienaga is able to balance this with ideological connections and explanations of how Japan’s national identity affects politics. I appreciate that Ienaga vows to use easily accessible evidence to develop his argument, along with limiting the inclusion of personal experiences. I feel that this builds his thesis on facts rather than opinion, even though his opinions on Japan’s history with East Asia and the United States are made very clear by the end of the book. Though Ienaga’s wording of events and ideas is often biased towards one interpretation of the Pacific War and Japan’s role in it, I do not feel that it takes away from his argument because of the number of primary sources he refers to. Ultimately, I would read this book not just to expand one’s knowledge of the Pacific War, but also to gain a new perspective on Japan’s relationship with history and the way national identity impacts Japanese-East Asian relations, an issue still prevalent in today’s political society.

[Tim Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saburo Ienaga argues that Japan’s war ran from the Manchurian Incident in 1931 through to the Japanese surrender in 1945 without a significant break or change of policy. War with Britain and the US in 1941 was a side show. The real war was always in China.

But Ienaga also maintains that anti-communism was the driving force in the minds of the Japanese military. The War was therefore the war against Mao ; Manchuria a bastion against Stalin; the Pacific theatre a mere diversion ; the Japanese Empire in Southeast Asia a mere accident. This surely cannot be true.

Ienaga is a peace campaigner and he therefore portrays the war as a folly, a crime and a disaster. It was all those things, but by leaving out the heroism and the action he makes the war much less interesting. That makes for a disappointing and unbalanced read.

The way the military controlled the civilian government was very interesting. Anyone who wanted to be Prime Minister needed to appoint a cabinet, and that meant he had to appoint a Minister of Defence. But the Minister of Defence had to be a serving officer, which meant he could only be appointed with the approval of the military. If the armed forces command disapproved of a Prime Minister, they had only to announce that no officer was willing to be Minister of Defence, and that brought down the government.

Not only did the army bully the civilian government, but didn’t even keep them informed. One civilian minister did not find out about the Japanese defeat at Midway until a month later. Another didn’t find out about the defeat at Leyte Gulf until after the war was over!

But the Japanese top brass didn’t have things all their own way. The invasion of Manchuria was agreed policy, but the timing was decided by local commanders acting on their own initiative. This insubordination was never prosecuted. Military strategy, even foreign policy, was decided by young hot-heads in the field. The government just followed along. Aggression was always rewarded, caution was always punished. In retrospect, it is remarkable that Japan never had a proper dictator, not even a Churchill or a Roosevelt. In theory, the Emperor was the source of all authority. In practice, no one was really in charge. By contrast, Hitler kept the Wehrmacht under civilian control and all military and policy decisions were taken in Berlin.

To accept the American oil embargo in 1941 would mean defeat in China, and it was easier for the Japanese military to open a new front than to accept defeat on the old one. No one was at all certain of beating the United States at sea, yet no one dared to say that it couldn’t be done. War with the US was the logical next step. Japan would muddle through somehow. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour therefore corresponds to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union: a fatal broadening of the conflict in response to disappointing progress on existing fronts.

Ienaga says the human rights abuses by the army were a natural consequence of the human rights abuses within the army. Officers despised the NCOs, who bullied the regular troops, who beat the raw recruits, who murdered, robbed and raped the conquered peoples. The attitude that might is right – the only right – permeated the whole of Japanese society. This is a plausible explanation. What Ienaga does not say is that the whole concept of “rights” is of Western origin and had never been a part of the Japanese tradition. Instead, the Japanese had privileges (granted and revoked by the Emperor) and good manners (which only applied to equals and superiors). It seems that Confucian benevolence and Buddhist compassion did not have strong roots in Japan.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love an historian who is unafraid of political motives... Saburo Ienaga, a renowned Japanese historian, wrote a textbook that included the atrocities that took place between 1931 and 1945 at the hands of the Japanese. His textbook, however, went through tremendous revision at the hands of the government and the atrocities were left out. Ienaga uses this book to tell the story he was unable to tell in the classroom. Pacific War does not lack for descriptions of Japanese war atrocities and he does not want the Japanese public to forget its past.

This is not a typical World War 2 book. Ienaga is a social historian and his focus, thankfully, stays away from battle details and military strategy. (I'm no military historian either!) He provides an intriguing explanation for why the Japanese public and civilian government did very little to prevent the war. But spends more time discussing the details of the atrocities that took place at Japanese hands and how the war impacted the Japanese public.

A worthwhile read... a good addition to any historian's World War 2 collection.

[Tyrfingur Kiyomizu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great brief survey of the Pacific War, even more valuable as it is written with honesty and valuable introspection. Even more rare (for a WW2 history by a Japanese scholar) it does not flinch from Japan's wartime atrocities.
My main critique is that the author is overly influenced by the 'radical chic' in vogue amongst leftist scholars at the time (it was written in the 70s). As such, he is overly sympathetic with Mao. It is one thing to analyze Mao's effectiveness with the peasantry; it is another to ignore his sociopathic and hedonistic brutality. Chang Kai Shek was certainly not the ideal candidate to back. And Mao certainly was a better mobilizer of the peasantry. However, the author does Chang a disservice by ignoring how his army absorbed the vast brunt of the Japanese assault whilst Mao largely avoided open battle.
Despite this, I highly recommend this excellent piece of scholarship. It fills a gap in Western histories of the war that has yet to be filled.

[Nigel Pinkus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrifying, grim yet an incredibly eye opening account of an entire nation that was completely ignorant of what their war machine had done overseas from 1931 until 1945. The government had lied to its' people through the use of war propaganda, distorting the truth and down right repression of any knowledge that the public 'needed' to know. It was through, what Ienaga called, "Thought Control and Indoctrination". In Japan, there were 'Internal security laws against intellectual freedom', 'education was for national conformity', 'loyalty to the emperor', a 'willingness to die for the country' was above all else and of course patriotism was first and foremost fundamentally taught.

It did help, however, that attendance at school was only required until the end of grade six elementary school (not junior high school, not high school and heaven forbid not university, if you ever got that far). PE classes were taught as military training, mathematics was geared around calculating 'military matters', ethics was taught as to what it meant to be a valiant Japanese soldier, science was about how many searchlights the military might need in the dark and music was about war songs. All in elementary school!!! Just think what it must have been like in the higher grades where military officers become members of school staff.

This person thought that this situation isn't too different from what is occurring in North Korea at the moment. You'll find that the country only has one TV station, there is no internet and people can be arrested for making an unauthorised international phone call or for watching a Hollywood movie. Yeonmi Parks. 2018. Whilst North Korea is ruled by a crazed dictator, Japan was run by the military elite that was irrational and out of control. They dominated and intimidated the Diety and then ignored them after they got their way. They never told them anything and even intimidated civilian politicians and major civilian figure when it suited them. If that didn't work then, the military had kill squads that went around and simply murdered those who got in their way. In 1936, both the Finance Minister at the time and the Inspector General of Military Education were both found butchered to death.

Essential reading for those interested in East Asian studies, for those interested in WW2 or for those interested who just want to know what Japan did in China (the rape of Nankin), Korea and in South East Asia from 1931 until 1945. Just as importantly, Inenaga never justified why Japan did the things that did, but instead he wrote more than fifty pages on, "Why the war was not prevented?" which can be found in the first part of this book. Imperial Japan had state indoctrination, a military elite that controlled the education system and the flow of information and used the education system to spread totalitarianism and fascism from a very early age. It was military absolutism at its most worst. < 5 STARS >

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, Saburo Ienaga, a Japanese, starts off the first chapter by noting that there were few opponents of Japan's imperialistic war on China, and they never had the numbers or the political strength to stop the war.




One writing in 1823 called for Japan to make the entire world “provinces and districts” of Japan, so there were some that were looking towards Japanese expansionism over a hundred years before the China “incidents.”


The book says that the Japanese attempts to get its own colonies in the Asian areas wasn't really any different from what was being done by the Europeans and by America in the same area and the argument has its merits.


1869: Publishing regulations passed.


1873: Newspaper law passed, restricting freedom of speech.

1875: Libel Law, for same purpose.


1880: List of books favorable to democracy is compiled, and the books are prohibited from use as textbooks.


1890: Assembly and Political Organizations Law


1893: Publication Law


1900: Public Order Police Law

1908: Criminal code. “”A commander who allows his unit to surrender to the enemy without fighting to the last man or who concedes a strategic area to the enemy shall be punishable by death.”


1909: Another Newspaper Law.


1925: Peace Preservation Law


”The internal security laws were primarily intended to prevent discussion or factual reporting about three areas the authorities deemed sensitive: the monarchial system and public order, the dignity of the imperial family, and public morals. An additional objective was control of information about military and diplomatic affairs.”


1925: Active duty military officers are assigned to all schools from the middle school level up (minus girls' schools); military training becomes part of the school routine.


The book notes that civilians were not the only ones not being told the truth. “Everything related to Japan's military strength was classified.” Even cabinet ministers and senior advisors were denied adequate information to make decisions on.


1928: Chang Tso-lin was the warlord who controlled Manchuria. His train is blown up by the Japanese army.


1931, Spring: “Proposal regarding the Problems of Manchuria and Mongolia” is written, calling for staged incident so Mongolia and Manchuria could be occupied.1932, March 1: The new state of Manchuko is proclaimed.


The “Shanghai Incident,” in response to the Chinese boycotting Japanese goods.


In the 1930's, the author writes, the military did what they wanted to do and paid little if any attention to what the Emperor wanted.


1941: Elementary schools are renamed national schools.


1941: Field Service Code: “Do not be taken alive.”


1941: Peace Preservation Law is amended to allow “preventative detention” of political activists, and indefinite detention of political prisoners.


1941: National Defense Security Law: important government business like cabinet meetings are declared “state secrets”, with severe penalties for obtaining or revealing such classified information.


1941 (?) Provisional Law for Control of Speech, Publications, Assembly and Association: Political groups, political meetings, and publication of newspapers and magazines must get prior approval for their activities.


1941, March: Basic Concepts of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is published by the Imperial Rule Assistance Association. It says: “Although we use the expression 'Asian co-operation,' this by no means ignores the fact that Japan was created by the Gods or posits an automatic racial equality.”

1941, April: Basic Necessities Control ordinance started a rationing system for rice, fish, vegetables, condiments and clothing.


1942: Special Law on War-time Crimes is enacted.


1943: Middle schools are required to use government textbooks, no longer having the right to choose their own textbooks from a longer list.

1943: Special Law on War-time Crimes is modified. “To disseminate information during wartime which will harm public order for the purpose of interfering with national administration or public order” becomes a crime.


1943: The Cabinet Information Bureau bans 1,000 songs, mainly American and British.

1943: Factory Law Wartime Exemption: Women and children are “permitted” to work more than eleven hours a day. The two rest days a month were rescinded.


1943: Deferments for students in universities, technical college and higher schools are ended.

1944, April: Steel guitars, banjos and ukeleles are outlawed due to their “foreign influence.”


Other terms


Guadalcanal defeat: “Transfer of forces.”

Atomic bomb: “A special bomb.”

Japanese Military


The author notes that men in the Japanese military did not get as good meals as did American troops, that their equipment they had to carry was heavier, and:


”Military education, training, and the daily routine of barracks life at the squad level was an unending stream of humiliation and rough treatment.”


He adds that physical abuse of trainees was commonplace. The side effect of training men to become “vicious fighters” was then tendency to be brutal to others, including civilians and POWs.


The “Three Human bombs of the Shanghai Fighting” story is about three men that “died heroic deaths in a valiant assault on the enemy.” The truth apparently was that the three men were engineers planting explosives and one of the fuses was too short, blowing up all three men in the process.

Problems that the military encountered in planning included under-estimating US production capabilities and under-estimating the British and Russian military abilities, and over-estimating the German military abilities. Short term, of course, both Germany and Japan were triumphant militarily, but they both lost in the long term.


The author writes about how, late in the war, the Army was drafting middle-aged men and physically unfit men and not even giving them guns.


”Rape was an accepted prerogative of the Imperial Army.”

Religion
State Shinto became a nationalistic creed. Officials of the Salvation Army, the Holiness Church and other sects were arrested.


Resistance by Civilians in General
”Every aspect of life was so regimented and controlled that no one could plan a treacherous act worthy of the death penalty.”

”The populace remained silent, unable to learn the facts or discuss politics or the war.”


Pearl Harbor


The book is another one that says that the Japanese fully intended to inform the US that they were at war before the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the embassy staff had trouble getting the rather long message decoded, and they didn't manage to finish until after the attack was actually started. So, technically, Pearl Harbor wasn't supposed to be a “sneak attack,” but even if they had informed the US in time it would have been at most a few hours or even a few minutes before the attack took place.


Atrocities

”Japanese forces committed atrocities against the Chinese everywhere in the combat zone.”

The author says that around 41,000 Chinese were taken to Japan as slave laborers. Of these, about 1,000 died en route, and another 6,000 died at work sites.


In Osaka, in June, 1945, a senior army officer said that it would be necessary to kill all infirm old people, the very young, and the sick due to the nationwide food shortage.




A ship, the Awa-maru, that was sunk by the US, had been guaranteed safe passage. The author notes that the action was illegal, but the ship had also been loaded with tin and other prohibited war goods.

Unit 731 and the use of poison gas in China is also discussed.

”The atrocities committed by the Imperial Army and Navy attest to the moral degeneration of the ruling elite.”

The mass suicide of civilians on Saipan is discussed

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Western academic world, the overwhelming majority of analysis of how a society can be molded into a total war machine is concentrated on Nazi Germany. How the people of Germany could be quickly molded into a society that supported a brutal war with genocidal traits. Comparatively little scholarship has been done regarding how Japanese society was molded by militarists into one that was willing to go to war with literally half the world. This book is an attempt to explain how Japanese society went from one with a constitution, a nearly independent judiciary and political parties into one where the merest hint of opposition to the wars being launched by Japan could lead to arrest and even death.
Ienaga starts with describing the liberal elements that were a fundamental component of Japanese society in the 1920’s and how they were slowly eroded over time. There was a small, but significant Communist movement in the country as well as many intellectuals that argued forcefully for Japan to adopt a course of cooperation with other nations, including China. He describes how all aspects of the society, down to elementary school instruction, were changed into means whereby racist slurs were leveled against the Chinese. The Chinese were dehumanized to the point where their killing was a noble, honorable task to be conducted.
Ienaga is open about describing the behavior of Japanese troops when they occupied other countries. While making statements about liberation from the Western colonial forces, the people of the occupied countries learned very quickly that the Japanese occupation was a more brutal and exploitative force than the Western countries executed.
This is one of the best books about Japanese society and how it changed so that the war that started in China in 1931 and lasted until 1945 could take place. Unlike many other Japanese authors that deny what the Japanese military did to others, Ienaga is honest, forceful and spares no fact.

[Seth Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot! It provides a lot of context for understanding the big mystery of why Japan antagonized the US when the US was so clearly larger, more industrialized, and wealthier. As I understood it:

1) Japanese military leaders effectively neutralized civilian leadership and opposition in the 1930s
2) the military really wanted to pacify China, but it underestimated how hard that would be, and eventually they were in a position where they'd either need more oil to get the job done (and though there was oil in the Dutch East Indies, Japan was under embargo for oil and metals), or withdraw from China, and they opted to try to break the blockade, which meant bombing Pearl Harbor and invading the Philippines
3) They thought the US would crack, or that the alliance would crack, under pressure
4) there was strong anti-communist sentiment, and the Japanese military thought they needed a base in Manchuria as a bulwark against the USSR
5) a lot of the institutions that would have allowed decision-makers (and regular folks) to understand that they shouldn't poke the bear, like a free press, had been destroyed or undermined over time by the military
6) Just a general sense that it was noble to die in a lost cause, and all the insanity you'd expect if that were in the water around you.

Anyway just a really nice illustration of the fact that culture/ideas matter when you're trying to explain stuff, and that with big blunders especially, a rational choice framework does not get you that far, I think 😃

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn’t until halfway through that I realized this was published in 1979. I was impressed until then, but that discovery placed the book in a whole new light: to release this when the pendulum had swung to acceptance of Japan’s role in the Pacific War is nothing short of remarkable. This is a primer (and Ienaga acknowledges its inadequacy in this respect), but it still covers so much for how short it is. There’s such an impressive balance here: Ienaga recounts facts (facts that have been ignored by Japan since the late 40s) precisely, but never wavers in his commitment to sharp condemnation of Japan and those who paper over its role in the war. Perhaps even more impressive than this is Ienaga’s repeated return to parties (in Japan and elsewhere) who ought to be remembered for their defiance, even if they didn’t change the course of history.

There is a tendency for the factual trees to obscure the essence of the forest, the basic nature of the war. The public only wants to forget the unpleasant experience, but collective amnesia will also erase the costly lessons of the war. This book is an attempt to halt that erosion of consciousness.

[Eric Kortschak · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - Ienaga's book is not really for newcomers. It is not a general history of the Pacific War (its short length alone should be evidence of that), nor is it really an exhaustive study of any of its various elements. It is, instead, a focused plea regarding how the author feels it should be - how it NEEDS to be - remembered by his nation, written in the wake of shifting national memory (though, notably, before many of the international consequences of that shifting national memory had a chance to catch up with Japan). This is also in service to a central thesis about how Imperial Japan's specific relationship with democracy is key to understanding its actions and key to the destruction visited upon both it and its victims.

The book is still a serious work of history, though, in its use of sourcing and notes and academic rigor; as such, a good deal can be learned from it, particularly when it starts to account primary sources. Recommended, but perhaps not for the uninitiated.

[Greta Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ienaga's polemics are obvious, in this work examining the broader perspectives of how Japan came to move from respectable international citizen to empire rampant. Of course, since Ienaga's particular politics are very similar to my own, I deeply enjoyed every chapter of this book.

I suspect later history (probably not widely available in translation) has to a certain extent superceded some of Ienaga's arguments, while others will certainly strike the American, or more probably Anglo-Eurosphere reader, as confounding in the connections they make (eg attributing American and Chinese strength in WW2 to a shared democratic spirit/ideology which the colonial empires lacked). Definitely worth reading and promulgating, if only to challenge the common stereotypical image of Japan as a conservative fantasyland of conformity.

[yashas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book on Japanese perspective of the ww2. This book is an anti war novel, you’ll find a lot of gory details about Japanese soldiers and how they got pulled into the war. The structural changes in society that lead to war and the mindset of Japanese that lead to Japan attacking china, USA and Indiochina. I learnt how Japanese society was totalitarian and suppressed antiwar movement even though it was a democracy. How ijn and ija acted independently. They didn’t even tell the pm that they went to war with china. They had considerable control over the government too. Definitely a good book for people interested in learning about pacific war or ww2.

[TheIron Paw · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had expected a military history but this book is more political and social history of the Pacific War from a Japanese perspective - particularly from the perspective of avoiding a recurrence of militarism and nationalistic empire building. The author does effectively present his analysis, though the writing (perhaps the translation) can be somewhat dry. What I found particularly striking was the role played by government control of the educational curriculum in facilitating their nationalistic/imperialistic agenda.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal Account of the Pacific War

Very rarely does one get to consider war from alternate perspectives, though Saburo Ienaga's book provides just that. Written from a critical Japanese perspective, Pacific War provides insight into the true depth of the atrocities committed by all sides in the Pacific theater of World War II. I highly recommend this book to any students of history, or those with an interest in WWII.

[aku · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an incredible, brutal book about Japan's role in the so-called Pacific War. Incredible because this was very obscure to me, even unknown, before I read this book, as it must be to a lot of western people.

Japan's responsibility, cruelty, and reality during the war is something that must not be forgotten. I appreciate the author's intention of trying to create a social conscience about Japan's role in the war so that its horros will, hopefully, not ever be repeated.

[Sam Russo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging look at Japan during WW2 and the Second Sino-Japanese War, which Ienaga aptly groups together as a single Pacific War. The author's unabashed admiration for Mao Tse-Tung, and the Communist Party of China, renders it of questionable utility for historians.

[Gordon Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book from the Japanese perspective discussing the folly of Japan's fundamental mistakes that led to world war 2.

[Ryan Gulikers · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible insight into the issues Japan faced during the pre-war, mid-war, and post-war periods. Ienaga does an incredible job of explaining his role in the fight against historical revisionism.