Emperors of the Rising Sun: Three Biographies - Hardcover

Large, Stephen S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 4770018398 ISBN 13: 9784770018397

Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc, 1997

Synopsis

The history of modern Japan cannot be conceived without reference to its emperors. Japan became a modern nation during the reign of Emperor Meiji from 1868 to 1912, experienced an interlude for a good part of the reign of Emperor Taisho (1912-26), and then suffered defeat in war and rose from its ashes during the reign of Emperor Showa (Hirohito) from 1926 to 1989.

What role did the three emperors play in forming the policies of government and influencing the course the country would take? How did their personalities affect this role? What kind of men, in fact, were they? It is such questions as these that the author, Stephen S. Large, winner of the Ohira Prize for his book on Emperor Hirohito, attempts to answer.

From Emperors of the Rising Sun: Three Biographies the reader will not only gain an insight into the lives and characters of the three emperors but will also acquire an understanding of the inner workings of Japanese politics and a knowledge of the behind-the-scenes stories that determined the kind of nation that Japan would become. In short, Emperors of the Rising Sun is enjoyable as well as insightful, a delight for anyone interested in the history of Japan or the roles that emperors have played in modern times.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen S. Large is a Reader in Modern Japanese history at Cambridge University. In 1993 he was awarded the Ohira Masayoshi Prize for Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan: A Political Biography.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

[The opening pages of "Showa (Hirohito): The 'Reprieved' Emperor."]

Hirohito began his reign of Showa, or "illustrious peace," by proclaiming high hopes for the future. In his first rescript, promulgated on December 28, 1926, he declared, "The world is now in a process of evolution.... A new chapter is being opened in the history of civilization." He went on:

"This nation's settled policy always stands for progress and improvement. Simplicity instead of vain display, originality instead of blind imitation, progress in view of this period of evolution, improvement to keep pace with the advancement of civilization, national harmony in purpose and in action, beneficence to all classes of people, and friendship to all the nations of the earth: these are the cardinal aims to which Our most profound and abiding solicitude is directed."

However, domestic conflict, not "harmony," and enmity with other nations, not "friendship," soon made a mockery of these naive expectations, and Showa himself would mostly be remembered for war, not peace. The historian Inoue Kiyoshi writes, "The man Hirohito was no doubt a sympathetic and courteous gentleman to his family and advisers. But Emperor Hirohito reigned at the summit of an atrocious emperor system, fascism, and continued to direct both aggressive wars and a system which oppressed the people." Or, as the Japanese Communist Party was reported by The New York Times as stating on January 8, 1989, the day after Showa's death: "We are called upon to speak out in deep emotion of the tens of millions of victims of the war of aggression and harsh domestic rule who cannot speak any more. The Emperor Hirohito bears the heaviest and supreme responsibility for the war of aggression."

From these perspectives, Showa's reprieve by General Douglas MacArthur, who exempted him from trial as a war criminal after World War II, was a momentous travesty of justice. In view of the emotions generated by Japan's aggression in the early Showa period, it is understandable that many people see Hirohito as a war criminal who regrettably "got away." But just how far was he in fact responsible for war? We have already begun to think about him in the context of the Taisho Regency. It remains to probe further into who he was and what part he played in twentieth-century Japanese and world history.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 4770018398
• ISBN 13: 9784770018397
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 231