Militarist-in-chief or Man of Peace?

According to conventional wisdom, Japan's Emperor Hirohito was a man of peace, forced by Japan's militarist elites to support his country's wartime aggression. In his provocative new book Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, historian Herbert Bix offers a dramatic reappraisal of the emperor's wartime role, arguing that Hirohito was in fact far more hawkish and closely involved in Japan's war plans than has been previously acknowledged.

Bix goes on to argue that the post-war whitewash of Hirohito's past was abetted by the United States in order to cement a stable and dependable ally in Japan -- with lasting and unfavorable consequences for the development of Japanese democracy. Bix's book has recently drawn significant editorial interest from The Los Angeles Times and many other publications and has been cited by leading scholars as one of the single most important historical treatments of modern Japan.

Herbert P. Bix is a professor at Japan's Hitotsubashi University and an internationally recognized authority on modern and contemporary Japanese history.

Participants

• Herbert Bix, Professor, Hitotsubashi University