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Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945
Power and Culture challenges existing assumptions about the war in the Pacific. By focusing on the interplay between culture and international relations, one of the world's most distinguished scholars of United States-Japanese affairs offers a startling reassessment of what the war really meant to the two combatants. Akira Iriye examines the Japanese-American war for the first time from the cultural perspectives of both countries, arguing that it was more a search for international order than a ruthless pursuit of power.
His thesis is bold, for he convincingly demonstrates that throughout the war many Japanese leaders shared with their American counterparts an essentially Wilsonian vision of international cooperation. As the war drew to a close, these statesmen began to plan for a cooperative world structure that was remarkably similar to the ideas of American policymakers. Indeed, as Iriye shows, the stunning success of Japanese-American postwar relations can be understood only in the light of a deep convergence of their ideals.
Iriye has drawn his conclusions from original research, using official Japanese archives and recently declassified American documents. These offer a totally new perspective on the ways leaders in both countries actually viewed the war they were waging.
His thesis is bold, for he convincingly demonstrates that throughout the war many Japanese leaders shared with their American counterparts an essentially Wilsonian vision of international cooperation. As the war drew to a close, these statesmen began to plan for a cooperative world structure that was remarkably similar to the ideas of American policymakers. Indeed, as Iriye shows, the stunning success of Japanese-American postwar relations can be understood only in the light of a deep convergence of their ideals.
Iriye has drawn his conclusions from original research, using official Japanese archives and recently declassified American documents. These offer a totally new perspective on the ways leaders in both countries actually viewed the war they were waging.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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About the author
Akira Iriye
82 books14 followersAkira Iriye is an historian of American diplomatic history especially United States-East Asian relations, and international issues. A graduate of Haverford College and Harvard University, he taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Rochester, and the University of Chicago before accepting an appointment as Professor of History at Harvard University in 1989, where he became Charles Warren Professor of American History in 1991. He was Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies from 1991 through 1995. He served as President of the American Historical Association in 1988, and has also served as president for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 13, 2020
"Power and Culture" is a study of the meaning of the war in Asia and the Pacific from the viewpoints of two major combatants – Japan and the USA. Akira Iriye's aim is to show the Asian war as a catalytic event in terms of which she explores the nature of recent international relations.
Akira Iriye's assumption is that the actors in world affairs can be viewed as powers and as cultures. Power characterizes a nation's armed forces, strategies, war-making potentials, including willingness to use force, as well as the perception of other countries' intentions. A nation is also a culture because its boundaries are not only geograhically defined but also the sharing of literary, religious, and artistic roots, as well as customs and ways of life. That's why – as Akira Iriye assesses – the study of international relations must entail three categories of inquiry: power-level interactions, cultural interchanges, and the relationship between these two sets of relations. In this book examines the meanings the American and Japanese gave to the war. They fought fiercely against each other for physical survival; each side mobilized its total resources to destroy the other, and in the end the side that had greater military strength, better strategy, and a more efficient system of production won. At the same time both nations were concerned with more than physical survival and were keenly interested in defining what they were struggling to preserve. They developed visions of what their societies and the entire world would be like when the fighting ended. They sought to articulate their war aims and peace objectives in ways that made sense to themselves, to each other, and presumably to other people.
By tracing the story of war goals stated by Japanese and Americans, Akira Iriye examines the symbolic aspect of the war and arrives at conclusions about its cultural significance.
Interestingly, as the book demonstrates, the Japanese and Americans developed a number of similar assumptions, so that in the end they both opted for a "conservative" solution – for restoring the kind of international order in which they had once been more compatible. Akira Iriye's book explores the international environment that was considered most conducive to compatibility among different power and cultural systems.
Quite a specific approach to the subject: The style of the book is rather dry. I can't give it more than 3 stars.
Akira Iriye's assumption is that the actors in world affairs can be viewed as powers and as cultures. Power characterizes a nation's armed forces, strategies, war-making potentials, including willingness to use force, as well as the perception of other countries' intentions. A nation is also a culture because its boundaries are not only geograhically defined but also the sharing of literary, religious, and artistic roots, as well as customs and ways of life. That's why – as Akira Iriye assesses – the study of international relations must entail three categories of inquiry: power-level interactions, cultural interchanges, and the relationship between these two sets of relations. In this book examines the meanings the American and Japanese gave to the war. They fought fiercely against each other for physical survival; each side mobilized its total resources to destroy the other, and in the end the side that had greater military strength, better strategy, and a more efficient system of production won. At the same time both nations were concerned with more than physical survival and were keenly interested in defining what they were struggling to preserve. They developed visions of what their societies and the entire world would be like when the fighting ended. They sought to articulate their war aims and peace objectives in ways that made sense to themselves, to each other, and presumably to other people.
By tracing the story of war goals stated by Japanese and Americans, Akira Iriye examines the symbolic aspect of the war and arrives at conclusions about its cultural significance.
Interestingly, as the book demonstrates, the Japanese and Americans developed a number of similar assumptions, so that in the end they both opted for a "conservative" solution – for restoring the kind of international order in which they had once been more compatible. Akira Iriye's book explores the international environment that was considered most conducive to compatibility among different power and cultural systems.
Quite a specific approach to the subject: The style of the book is rather dry. I can't give it more than 3 stars.
February 27, 2016
This is a book that looks at the war along the lines of cultural differences between the two nations, and it's filled with quite a bit of interesting information.
Most books talk about the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, naming it Manchuko, but this book details the plans before the actual takeover. The idea was to resettle Japanese into the Manchuria area and then take over its economic development (to favor Japan, of course). A plan made in 1937 was scheduled for some twenty years, to resettle one million Japanese households into the Manchuria area, and about half a million Japanese actually ended up migrating to Manchuria before the end of the war, some 250,000 of which were farmers.
Another plan, made a year earlier, looked at economic development of north China under the control of Japan and Manchuko.
A lot of the justification, on the Japanese side, for the attack on China was to free it, and other Asian areas, of domination by the western powers. Sort of an “Asia for Asians” concept, with the Japanese at the tip of the pyramid of power.
One of the early things to tip the balance of whether or not there would be war with the US was the US freezing of Japanese assets, and the revocation of all export licenses for shipping oil to Japan. The Dutch authorities in the East stopped their shipping of oil to Japan, and this put Japan under a lot of pressure since it didn't have its own oil supplies. It was sort of like “how dare you do this to us” response from Japan. (Getting the oil through peaceful means rather the invasion of other countries didn't seem to be considered very strongly, though.)
I've read elsewhere that Yamamoto, the great Japanese admiral, said he would run wild pretty much for a year but after that things would turn against Japan due to the strength of the US and that's just what happened. A year after the attack on Pearl Harbor things were already starting to go badly for Japan. A good part of the problem was the effectiveness of US submarines, which were sinking Japanese shipping faster than anticipated. The Japanese navy was finding it was not getting ships replaced fast enough.
One really interesting thing in the book is that the US was considering, even in 1942, what to do after the war was over, and what to do with Japanese territories. More detailed plans were begun in May of 1943. The meetings included talks about what to do with the Emperor and the militarist group after the war was over.
If they kept the Emperor, the thinking ran, than he could be used to “rally inform-minded forces within Japan to reconstruct the country along peaceful paths.” In other words, he would become a front man for US policy in Japan.
A Navy man, Captain H.L. Pence, argued that Japan should be destroyed as a power and as a culture, both. He called for “the almost total elimination of the Japanese as a race.”
Most books talk about the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, naming it Manchuko, but this book details the plans before the actual takeover. The idea was to resettle Japanese into the Manchuria area and then take over its economic development (to favor Japan, of course). A plan made in 1937 was scheduled for some twenty years, to resettle one million Japanese households into the Manchuria area, and about half a million Japanese actually ended up migrating to Manchuria before the end of the war, some 250,000 of which were farmers.
Another plan, made a year earlier, looked at economic development of north China under the control of Japan and Manchuko.
A lot of the justification, on the Japanese side, for the attack on China was to free it, and other Asian areas, of domination by the western powers. Sort of an “Asia for Asians” concept, with the Japanese at the tip of the pyramid of power.
One of the early things to tip the balance of whether or not there would be war with the US was the US freezing of Japanese assets, and the revocation of all export licenses for shipping oil to Japan. The Dutch authorities in the East stopped their shipping of oil to Japan, and this put Japan under a lot of pressure since it didn't have its own oil supplies. It was sort of like “how dare you do this to us” response from Japan. (Getting the oil through peaceful means rather the invasion of other countries didn't seem to be considered very strongly, though.)
I've read elsewhere that Yamamoto, the great Japanese admiral, said he would run wild pretty much for a year but after that things would turn against Japan due to the strength of the US and that's just what happened. A year after the attack on Pearl Harbor things were already starting to go badly for Japan. A good part of the problem was the effectiveness of US submarines, which were sinking Japanese shipping faster than anticipated. The Japanese navy was finding it was not getting ships replaced fast enough.
One really interesting thing in the book is that the US was considering, even in 1942, what to do after the war was over, and what to do with Japanese territories. More detailed plans were begun in May of 1943. The meetings included talks about what to do with the Emperor and the militarist group after the war was over.
If they kept the Emperor, the thinking ran, than he could be used to “rally inform-minded forces within Japan to reconstruct the country along peaceful paths.” In other words, he would become a front man for US policy in Japan.
A Navy man, Captain H.L. Pence, argued that Japan should be destroyed as a power and as a culture, both. He called for “the almost total elimination of the Japanese as a race.”
January 3, 2022
7，比较有启发，作者视野很宽广，日美的政治决策以及影响决策的文化都展现的比较全面，在这样的主题下，对日美与英德苏德外交关系都做了一些补充，相较之下，中国内部的问题（国共汪）变成了这种大关系下的小脚注，对汪政权也有较公允的看法。
July 3, 2013
Interesting view point...not one I subscribe to
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews