This is a blistering and persuasive reassessment of Emperor Showa's reign, debunking the various myths that have accumulated about his allegedly powerless role in Japan's prolonged period of aggressive expansion between 1931 and 1945.
Herbert Bix, professor of history at Hitotsubashi University, points out that the unmasking of Emperor Showa began 25 years ago, led by Japanese scholars angry about the systematic historical distortions aimed at obscuring his close involvement with the conduct of a war waged in his name and to his greater glory. This magnificent book draws heavily on the accumulated research of these and other scholars and on a variety of primary sources, some of which have only become available since the Emperor's death in 1989.
The Emperor who emerges from these pages is a man who saw millions die at his behest and then shamelessly spent the last 45 years of his reign participating in the concoction of a history designed to both exonerate him and immunize him from the consequences of his actions.
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