Defending Japan's Pacific War

by David Williams

This book puts forward a revisionist view of Japanese wartime thinking. It seeks to explore why Japanese intellectuals, historians and philosophers of the time insisted that Japan had to turn its back on the West and attack the United States and the British Empire. Based on a close reading of the texts written by members of the highly influential Kyoto School, and revisiting the dialogue between the Kyoto School and the German philosopher Heidegger, it argues that the work of Kyoto thinkers cannot be dismissed as mere fascist propaganda, and that this work, in which race is a key theme, constitutes a reasoned case for a post-White world. The author also argues that this theme is increasingly relevant at present, as demographic changes are set to transform the political and social landscape of North America and Western Europe over the next fifty years.

Genres: History

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

David Williams is a leading thinker on the Orient and a preeminent expert on the wartime Kyoto School. He is the author of Japan: Beyond the End of History (1994), Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science (1996) and Defending Japan's Pacific War: The Kyoto Philosophers and Post-white Power (2004) and The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy (2006).

Born in Los Angeles, he was educated in Japan and at UCLA, and contributed for many years to the Opinion Section of the Los Angeles Times. He has taught at Oxford, where he took his doctorate, Sheffield and Cardiff Universities. He has worked for the Industrial Bank of Japan, Mitsui and Co., the Iran-Japan Petrochemical Co. and Tōyō Keizai (‘The Oriental Economist’). During 12 of his 25 years in Japan, he was an editorial writer for The Japan Times before working in financial services in Tokyo, London and New York City. He is the author of Japan: Beyond the End of History, Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science, Defending Japan’s Pacific War: The Kyoto School Philosophers and Post-White Power, and co-editor of The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy. His work has been short-listed for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize and the John Whitney Hall History Award. In 2009 he delivered the inaugural Master Class on Paradigm Innovation in Interdisciplinary Research at University College Cork in the Irish Republic.