Scrupulously researched and bravely presented scholarship.
A series of astute academic essays on the forging of postwar Japan.
The winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and Bancroft Prize, Dower (History Emeritus/MIT; Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq, 2010, etc.) is comfortable going against the grain. He was key to bringing back into print the significant work of forgotten Canadian historian E.H. Norman, whose deep research into the Meiji state revealed the authoritarian, feudal legacies that later helped drag Japan into imperial militarism, misery and defeat. In his essay on Norman, Dower shows how this approach contrasted with the postwar modernization theorists then in vogue, who held that Japan’s militarism was essentially an aberration and hoped to put a positive spin on accomplishments since the Meiji era. Dower was told in 1970, during his time as a student, that his interest in the postwar occupation of Japan was “too recent to be history,” foreshadowing some of the obfuscation he would later encounter. Other essays here, which appeared between 1993 and 2000, are fascinating explorations into Japanese racial theories, intense militaristic and racial propaganda, pervasive sense of “victim consciousness” and eruptions of reactionary language and a faulty sense of responsibility. “The Bombed” is a riveting analysis of the effects of the atomic bombs on the Japanese psyche. Thanks to the collusion of the U.S. government, which aimed for an easy occupation of the country, the Japanese were censored from venting expressions of outrage and grief over their government's rampant militarism and the end-of-war atomic apocalypse. Dower explores the dual role of science as both destroyer and postwar miracle worker, a lesson to be gleaned by both America and postwar Japan in terms of economic growth and military technology.
Scrupulously researched and bravely presented scholarship.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59558-618-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
At least some L.A. cops were abusing their trust long before the Rodney King case—as demonstrated in this riveting narrative of police-sponsored insurance fraud, armed robbery, automatic-weapons dealing, and murder for hire. Detective Richard Ford and Officer Robert Von Villas of the LAPD's Devonshire Division (nicknamed ``Club Dev'' to emphasize its contrast with rougher areas of the city) seemed pillars of rectitude: decorated Vietnam heroes; charming and caring husbands and fathers, beloved for their service to the community. Many were astonished, then, when, in 1983, the two were indicted for conspiring to murder and for performing a contract killing. Their chief accuser, Bruce Adams, appeared a lowlife by contrast: an auto mechanic having business difficulties with the two cops, who were his silent partners; a Vietnam vet with post-traumatic stress disorder and a troubled work history. Even with a wealth of circumstantial evidence and a wired Adams catching Ford in an explicit conversation about a planned sex-torture-mutilation murder, convicting L.A.'s ``killer cops'' wasn't easy: The cases cost city taxpayers $8-10 million, with the trials concluded only six years after the arrests. As the first L.A. cops convicted of first-degree murder, Ford and Von Villas received life without possibility of parole. Golab (a contributing editor to Los Angeles magazine) tells the tale primarily from the viewpoint of Adams, an ambivalent hero terrified of informing on Ford (and no wonder: unlike the Federal Witness Protection Program, with its deep pockets, the LAPD could spare only $7,000 to help Adams relocate, and he and his family continue to live in hiding). It's a truly scary cautionary tale, though Golab's attempts to see it as a harbinger of the Rodney King beating seem forced, except for his noting of the rogue cops' belief that their badges were shields of immunity. Narrated with little grace, but the bone-chilling horror comes through in this story begging for film or TV adaptation.
Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1993
ISBN: 0-87113-499-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993
Two veteran Washington journalists offer a vigorous and resonant portrait of the 30-year decline and polarization of our capital. Jaffe (of Washingtonian magazine) and Sherwood (of WRC-TV, formerly of the Washington Post) tell their story in episodic sketches, covering the city's historic caste system among blacks, the rise of community organizer (and, later, mayor) Marion Barry during the War on Poverty, and the shift of power to blacks after the traumatic 1968 riots. The authors criticize the long-standing federal stranglehold on the district, as well as the Post's ignorance of black Washington, but their major culprit is ``Boss Barry,'' who emerged in his second mayoral term (1982-6) as a betrayer of the biracial coalition that first elected him. Barry's failures were legion: political spoils for a narrow group of adventurers such as profiteer-from-the-homeless Cornelius Pitts; a top aide turned embezzler; a police department in disarray; a downtown that boomed as other neighborhoods crumbled. His defiance of the black bourgeoisie and the white power structure preserved his popularity among blacks, and when he was arrested on drug charges in 1990—an episode recounted in telling detail—his lawyer successfully argued that the government was out to get him. After serving a six-month jail term for one misdemeanor, Barry began a comeback as council member from the city's poorest ward. The authors criticize the current mayor, reformer Sharon Pratt Kelly, as out of touch, and warn that federal receivership for Washington is as likely as full home rule and statehood. Reliance on dialogue-rich scenes sometimes sacrifices depth for drama, but this is a memorable and disturbing reminder of much unfinished urban business.
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-76846-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
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