 | |
| Author | John W. Dower |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | History |
| Publisher | W. W. Norton & Co. |
Publication date | 1986 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 399 |
| ISBN | 0-394-75172-8 |
War Without Mercy: Race & Power In the Pacific War is a 1986 history book written by John W. Dower and published by W. W. Norton & Company. [1] The book covers the views of the Japanese and their Western adversaries during the Pacific War, with a particular focus on the United States. [2] [3] [4]
In War Without Mercy, Dower, emeritus professor at MIT, examines the Pacific Campaign in the Second World War through a racial lens. [5] He argues that the fighting between the US and the Japanese be seen as a race war, as evidenced in "songs, slogans, propaganda reports, secret documents, Hollywood movies, the mass media and quotes from soldiers, leader and politicians". [6]
Dower contrasts Western racism toward Japanese people with attitudes toward Germans/Nazis since in the US, Germans overall were differentiated from Nazis. He contends that that differentiation was not complete or perfect, but was still different from the attitudes toward the entire Japanese people. He points to the different kinds of treatment people of German and Japanese descent were treated with (internment in the case of Japanese-Americans versus overlooking the German American Bund's open support for Hitler right up to the declaration of war). [7]
Dower instances examples of racism, and argues that such discourse and ideas can be easily re-established: "They [racist stereotypes] remain latent, capable of being revived by both sides in times of crisis and tension." [5]
While accepting some of the tenets of Dower's arguments, historians have also pushed back on some of his other points. For example, British journalist and historian Max Hastings argues that American views toward the Japanese accounted for little where aerial bombardment was concerned. Civilian populations in both Japan and Germany, he notes, were subjected to heavy Allied bombing raids in spite of the casualties war planners knew this would inflict. [8]
War Without Mercy is divided into four sections. The first section describes the patterns of a race war. The second and third part are a matched set: Part II covers the war from a Western viewpoint, while Part III relays the war as seen by Japanese eyes. Kitano says "The point-counterpoint scenario, as the two cultures misunderstand, misperceived, misinterpret and attempt to justify the destruction of each other is skillfully done." The final part is an epilogue, explaining how those intense viewpoints subsided, but may not have entirely disappeared. [6]
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the estimated global population of 2.3 billion in 1940. Deaths directly caused by the war are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union. The following tables give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses. Statistics on the number of military wounded are included whenever available.
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, also known as the GEACPS, was a pan-Asian union that the Empire of Japan tried to establish. Initially, it covered Japan, Manchukuo, and China, but as the Pacific War progressed, it also included territories in Southeast Asia. The term was first coined by Minister for Foreign Affairs Hachirō Arita on June 29, 1940.
In Japan, honne refers to a person's true feelings and desires, and tatemae refers contrastingly to the behavior and opinions one displays in public. This distinction began to be made in the post-war era.
The Tanaka Memorial is an alleged Japanese strategic planning document from 1927 in which Prime Minister Baron Tanaka Giichi laid out a strategy to take over the world for Emperor Hirohito. The authenticity of the document was long accepted and it is still quoted in some Chinese textbooks, but historian John Dower states that "most scholars now agree that it was a masterful anti-Japanese hoax."
The Fighting Seabees is a 1944 American war film directed by Edward Ludwig and starring John Wayne and Susan Hayward. The supporting cast includes Dennis O'Keefe, William Frawley, Leonid Kinsky, Addison Richards and Grant Withers. The Fighting Seabees portrays a heavily fictionalized account of the dilemma that led to the creation of the U.S. Navy's "Seabees" in World War II. At the 17th Academy Awards, the film received a nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture for Walter Scharf and Roy Webb but the award went to Max Steiner for Since You Went Away.
John W. Dower is an American author and historian. His 1999 book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, the Bancroft Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and the John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association.
A senninbari or one thousand stitch is a belt or strip of cloth stitched 1000 times and given as a Shinto amulet by Japanese women and imperial subjects to soldiers going away to war.
The General Affairs State Council (国務院) was the official executive administrative branch of the government of the Japanese-controlled Empire of Great Manchuria from 1934–1945.
Shōwa Statism is the nationalist ideology associated with the Empire of Japan, particularly during the Shōwa era. It is sometimes also referred to as Emperor-system fascism, Japanese-style fascism or Shōwa nationalism.
Rōmusha (労務者) a.k.a “Japanese Corvée”, is a Japanese language word for "laborer". In English, it usually refers to non-Japanese who were forced to work for the Japanese military during World War II. The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between 4 and 10 million rōmusha were forced to work by the Japanese military during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during World War II, many of whom experienced harsh conditions and either died or were stranded far from home. However, the term was not defined precisely by either the Japanese or the Allies and estimates for the total numbers of rōmusha sometimes encompass both the unpaid laborers a.k.a kinrōhōshi, as well as native auxiliary forces, such as troops of the Japanese-allied Indonesian volunteer army Pembela Tanah Air (PETA) and voluntary transmigrants to other islands in Indonesia.
The Instructions for the Battlefield was a pocket-sized military code issued to soldiers in the Imperial Japanese forces on 8 January 1941 in the name of then-War Minister Hideki Tojo. It was in use at the outbreak of the Pacific War.
Hakkō ichiu or hakkō iu was a Japanese political slogan meaning the divine right of the Empire of Japan to "unify the eight corners of the world." The slogan formed the basis of the empire's ideology. It was prominent from the Second Sino-Japanese War to World War II and was popularized in a speech by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe on January 8, 1940.
The Shinmin no michi was an ideological manifesto issued by the Ministry of Education of Japan during World War II aimed at Japan's domestic audience to explain in clear terms what was expected of them "as a people, nation and race".
Japanese propaganda in the period just before and during World War II, was designed to assist the regime in governing during that time. Many of its elements were continuous with pre-war themes of Shōwa statism, including the principles of kokutai, hakkō ichiu, and bushido. New forms of propaganda were developed to persuade occupied countries of the benefits of the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, to undermine American troops' morale, to counteract claims of Japanese atrocities, and to present the war to the Japanese people as victorious. It started with the Second Sino-Japanese War, which merged into World War II. It used a large variety of media to send its messages.
During American involvement in World War II (1941–45), propaganda was used to increase support for the war and commitment to an Allied victory. Using a vast array of media, propagandists instigated hatred for the enemy and support for America's allies, urged greater public effort for war production and victory gardens, persuaded people to save some of their material so that more material could be used for the war effort, and sold war bonds.
Hayashi Fusao was the pen name of a Japanese novelist and literary critic in Shōwa period Japan. He is known for his early works in the proletarian literature movement, although he later became a strong ultranationalist. His real name was Gotō Toshio (後藤寿夫), although he also used the alias "Shirai Akira".
An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus was a Japanese government report created by the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Institute of Population Problems, and completed on July 1, 1943.
The Concordia Association was a political party in Manchukuo. Established to promote the ideals of Pan-Asianism and the creation of a multi-ethnic nation-state and to create a structure which would gradually replace military rule over Manchukuo with civilian control, the party was unable to fulfill its promise, and was eventually subverted into an instrument of totalitarian state-control by the Japanese Kwantung Army.
The Greater East Asia Conference was an international summit held in Tokyo from 5 to 6 November 1943, in which the Empire of Japan hosted leading politicians of various component parts of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The event was also referred to as the Tokyo Conference.
Gaman (我慢) is a Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means "enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity". The term is generally translated as "perseverance", "patience", or "tolerance". A related term, gamanzuyoi, a compound with tsuyoi (strong), means "suffering the unbearable" or having a high capacity for a kind of stoic endurance.
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