Inventing Japan: 1853-1964 [Hardcover]

You will find yourself nodding in agreement thoughout the book if you already believe that Japan is intrinsically an evil society populated by people who are a hair trigger away from commiting war atrocities if a gun is handed to them. I cannot imagine what kind of an unhappy childhood he had spent in Japan.

This is an entertaining entry level book which is balanced on the surface. But he paints a century of Japanese history as if it was structurally destined to march into militarism. He neglects to mention that Turkey, Ethiopia, Thailand, Nepal and Japan were the only "colored" nations to remain independant until Pearl Harbor. Nor is there any reference to how close Japan was to becoming another opium infested European colony. He downplays that Japan's military build up was driven by fear of being colonized.

Like so many historians of the "Evil Japan" school, he misses the fascinating story of how Japan's initially defensive military became a fearsome expansionistic force. Analysis of this development is crucial to keeping such things from happening again. But for Buruma, it was destined to be expansionist to begin with. Japan was always evil.

Like all Japan demonizers, he attributes Japan's current ills, both real and imagined, to the fact that Emperor Hirohito was not executed after the Second World War. This bit of scapegoating is as worn out as the Kennedy Assasination. There was supposedly a dark conspiracy that involved Gen. MacArthur and some unnamed Japanese figures (always unnamed) that reached a closed-doors deal to save the Emperor. Like the unknown conspirators of the Kennedy Assasination, these shadowy figures are supposed to be lurking in the back corridors of Japanese power to this day. If they were power brokers in MacArthur's time, they must be quite marvelously venerable by now.

He concludes his book with the predictable alarmist dogma that Japan could become a militaristic nation one more time and threaten the Western world if it does not "confront its past". Apparently, 6 trillion yen in "aid" paid to China as unofficial and voluntary war reparations and some more to other nations - all with the consent of Japanese voters - does not count as confronting its past.

Shortly after the First Gulf War, Japanese professor Shiro Takahashi asked some 300 college students if they would fight for their country if Japan was ruthlessly invaded as was Kuwait. Only one answered that he would. All others answered that they would either surrender or run. Buruma turns around and calls this an "infantile dependence" on American military strength (which it may be), but I wonder how this reality fits into Buruma's picture of a dangerous nation that could plunge into militarism again. He does not seem to see the contradiction.

As long as professional hate mongers like Buruma can pass as experts on Japan, it is prudent that Japan remains in "infantile dependence" and avoid building its own defence capabilities. Who is to say that Japan will not follow the fate of Iraq and be attacked for suspicions of developing "militarist tendancies"?

It takes a detached reader to see how books like this are part of the cause of Japan's curious state in the world. Buruma along with Herbert Bix, David Bergamini, Iris Chang, Ivan P. Hall et al compose one view of Japan, but have you ever seen a book from the opposing camp? The overwhelming tidalwave of Japanophobia disguised as academic tretise shapes opinions on Japan around the world, and consequently shapes Japan. This book is worth reading only as an example of such a force.

He neglects to mention that Turkey, Ethiopia, Thailand, Nepal and Japan were the only "colored" nations to remain independant until Pearl Harbor. -> That may be because the Japanese Empire itself was invloved in colonizing several Asian countries, such as Korea, and in part China too.

Apparently, 6 trillion yen in "aid" paid to China as unofficial and voluntary war reparations and some more to other nations - all with the consent of Japanese voters - does not count as confronting its past. -> You really don't understand how China or Korea or any other country feel about the colonial past. You say Japan confronted their past with reperations, but the fact that some of your politicians still talk about "comfort women" as being a "normal" fact of war, or the prime minister visits Yasukuni Temple to pay homage to the war dead, doesn't really say anything close to "I'm sorry". How do you think Americans or Europeans would feel if the German Chancellor visited a shrine commemorating Hitler & his buddies every year? (and don't deny the fact that there are convicted war criminals enshrined there) Or if Japanese women were randomly kidnapped and sent to "camps" to serve as prostitutes? Japanese historians still deny that Nanjing eever happened. This is almost the same as a German historian saying that the Holocaust never happened. You need to face (and I mean FACE) what your country and government did in the past, not just by paying countries off, but actually acknowledging what you did. If this is not done, Japan's neighbors will NEVER trust Japan, and this sort of phobia will continue. Great example of doing the right thing would be Germany, and they are emerging as a leader in Europe. I cannot foresee Japan taking on a leadership role in any area, Asia or the world.