Embracing Defeat

3 Pages 727 Words

Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York : W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.





As with most accounts of post-war occupations, history is written though the eyes of the victor. The same can be said for previous accounts of the American occupation of Japan. The Japanese occupation differed from German occupation in that the United States did not have sole control in Germany as they did in Japan. The racial issue also plays an important role in the recorded history of the occupation. The United States looked upon the Japanese, in the same respect as they did any other occupants of the Asian continent as “little brown brothers” unable to restore their homeland. In his book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, John Dower attempts to tell the story from the other side of the fence. He depicts the Japanese characters in the tale and their struggles and willingness to move on, not just the popular American players who are usually portrayed as gods, handing out democracy from above. Through the use of cartoons, photographs, diary entries, and other pieces of everyday life as well as highly demonstrative language, John Dower attempts to recreate the social and cultural history of Japan during the American Occupation. This makes for a better overall understanding of the era, as he works from the inside; thoughts, motives, and emotions, to the outside; people, places, and events, through the eyes of the Japanese people.
Dower has tried to convey from within some sense of the Japanese experience of defeat by focusing on “social and cultural developments as well as on popular consciousness.” (25). Dower writes, "To put it a little differently, I have tried to capture a sense of what it meant to start over in a ruined world by recovering the voices of people at all levels of society."(25). The result is a highly informative collection of songs, signboards, rhymes, movie plots, comi...