Herbert P. Bix - Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Part I
The Princes Education, 19011921

Part II
The Politics Of Good Intentions, 19221930

Part III
His Majestys Wars, 19311945

Part IV
The Unexamined Life, 19451989

M y principal thanks go to my wife, Toshie, to whom this book is dedicated. Her hard work is reflected in the wealth of materials I was able to cover and in insights that found their way into the text.

Sam Hileman, an artist and former editor who lives in relative solitude in the Shenandoah Valley, in Millboro, Virginia, deserves special credit for brilliantly commenting in detail on the entire manuscript. He not only improved the flow in every single chapter but was a fertile source of ideas, a keen critic, and a good friend as well. I owe him a vast debt for enriching the book. Tim Duggan of HarperCollins was a splendid editor: incisive in his criticisms, patient, and supportive in every way. To him too I am greatly indebted. I particularly want to thank Susan Llewellyn of HarperCollins for her wonderful copyediting of the entire text. My literary agent, Susan Rabiner, made it happen and gave her support throughout.

John Dower offered wise counsel; he also made valuable comments on early versions of two war chapters. More than a decade ago, while on a visit to Sheffield, England, another old friend, Nakamura Masanori, gave me a copy of his book on the postwar Japanese monarchy; around the same time Glenn Hook, who lives in Sheffield, sent me the emperors Monologue. These two works started me off. David Swain provided critical feedback during the initial stages of my research and writing. Martin Sherwin commented incisively on an early version of the manuscript, and Mark Selden, who has always been unstinting with his help over the years, commented on the last chapter. I am grateful to all of them, and to Feroz Ahmad, Brian Victoria, Ed Friedman, and Jon Halliday, for leaving their marks on the text. Noam Chomsky kindly made insightful suggestions for improving the countdown to war. Andrew Gordon helped by enabling me to return to Harvard University for a year of teaching

I extend thanks to Harvard-Yenching Library and Hitotsubashi University Library, where I did my research; to Elly Clay for reading an early draft of chapter 7; to Jonathan Dresner and Christine Kim for responding to numerous requests for materials from the Harvard libraries, and to Kikuchi Nobuteru for his computer skills and helpful participation in my course on the Shwa monarchy.

A research fellowship from the U.S.Japan Educational Commission (Fulbright Program) enabled me to launch this project at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo in 1992. There I met Yoshida Yutaka and Watanabe Osamu, both of whom have written extensively and brilliantly on the metamorphosis of the modern monarchy. They discussed their views on Hirohito and shared with me their profound knowledge of the military, political, and constitutional history of modern Japan. Over the years they answered my queries and were always understanding and generous in their help. Awaya Kentar, another old and valued friend, made available materials on the Tokyo trials and was a rich source of ideas and suggestions. Were it not for them, I am sure that this book would be less than it is, and that I would also have overlooked scores of important Japanese sources. Toward the end of the decade, I joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Hitotsubashi, and in that most ideal environment completed the research and final rewriting of the manuscript.

Okabe Makio and Yamada Akira also deserve my deepest gratitude for sharing materials and discussing issues. Many other distinguished historians helped me make sense of Hirohitos life through their extensive writings, but Tanaka Nobumasa and Fujiwara Akira deserve special mention, as does Tanaka Hiromi, who made available the unpublished memoirs of Gen. Nara Takeji. To Akagawa Hiroaki I express thanks for his support and for supplying materials.

Over the ten years in which I pursued this project, my father-in-law, Shigeaki Watanabe, shared his recollections of early Shwa. Mrs. Yoshida Ryoko also cooperated by sending a constant stream of Japanese-language materials.

Parts of chapter 13 derive from my essay Japans Delayed Surrender: A Reinterpretation, in Diplomatic History (1995); many passages in chapters 14 and 16 come from Inventing the Symbol Monarchy in Japan, in the Journal of Japanese Studies (1995). I owe thanks to both journals for permission to use my material.

T his book encourages readers to reconsider the entire life of the Shwa Emperor and, at the same time, to reflect on universal questions of leadership and accountability that arise in periods of international instability and rampant nationalism.

For those who believe that international order should be based on respect for the rule of law and the sovereign rights of all nations, rather than on quests for hegemony and control over resources, its implications reach beyond the past. From late Meiji through early Shwa, war and raison detat nurtured the Japanese state. Military interventions concealed imperialist aims and strengthened institutions of public non-accountability, which in most nations still exist. Twentieth-century warfare allowed politicians to drive their nations and their nationalisms to extremes, and, if they were powerful enough or the circumstances permitted, to be immune from the consequences. Whenever that happened, the wars of the past could not be forgotten or normalized even when their protagonists were long dead. That imperial Japan had a classic system of irresponsibility centered on the imperial throne is both a reason to return to its past for insight into the present, and a reminder that without the Shwa emperor its past cannot be adequately studied.

From the tragic experience of war, defeat, and occupation, Japan lost the will to dominate and went on to build a peace state. By contrast, the victorious United States strengthened its hegemonic ambitions, built a culture of militarism, and embarked on a long trajectory of endless wars, waged with the same lack of moral and legal constraint that the U.S. government had once accused Japan of displaying. Now the Japanese people are being pressed to reach a consensus on constitutional revision that will tie the imperial house more tightly to the state, and to abandon Article 9 of their peace constitution. These moves could someday legitimate a revival of militarism. They will also reinforce nationalism, though on a new cultural and moral basis.

It is with these thoughts in mind that I hope this Kdansha bunkobon edition will contribute to a better understanding of Japans problems in the present.

Finally, I thank Yoshida Yutaka of Hitotsubashi University for again supervising this new edition.

Herbert P. Bix
April 5, 2005

I n the following pages the reader will encounter a Shwa emperor who differs from his official, though far from accurate portrayal, and a reinterpretation of the entire Sh