Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II

For the Japanese, the Second World War only really ended in 1952, when sovereignty was restored after the long American occupation. Despite a declared policy of ‘demilitarization and democratization’, General MacArthur ruled like a colonial overlord, relied on the disgraced Emperor Hirohito and the mandarin class, and soon began rearming a former enemy turned Cold War ally. John Dower explores the variety of responses to military disaster- the complex interplay between victor and vanquished; the behaviour of prostitutes, publishers, profiteers and politicians; and the first signs of the economic miracle to come. The result is a definitive account, enabling Westerners for the first time ‘to grasp the defeat and occupation as a lived Japanese experience’.