『Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan』のカバーアート

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

 プレビューの再生

Audibleプレミアムプラン30日間無料体験

プレミアムプランを無料で試す
オーディオブック・ポッドキャスト・オリジナル作品など数十万以上の対象作品が聴き放題。
オーディオブックをお得な会員価格で購入できます。
30日間の無料体験後は月額￥1500で自動更新します。いつでも退会できます。

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

著者： Herbert P. Bix
ナレーター： Jonathan Yen
プレミアムプランを無料で試す

30日間の無料体験後は月額￥1500で自動更新します。いつでも退会できます。

￥4,900 で購入

￥4,900 で購入

概要

In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose 63-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix describes what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status.

Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition and a modern scientific worldview, the young emperor gradually evolves into his preeminent role, aligning himself with the growing ultranationalist movement, perpetuating a cult of religious emperor worship, resisting attempts to curb his power, and all the while burnishing his image as a reluctant, passive monarch. Here we see Hirohito as he truly was: a man of strong will and real authority.

Supported by a vast array of previously untapped primary documents, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is perhaps most illuminating in lifting the veil on the mythology surrounding the emperor's impact on the world stage. Focusing closely on Hirohito's interactions with his advisers and successive Japanese governments, Bix sheds new light on the causes of the China War in 1937 and the start of the Asia-Pacific War in 1941. And while conventional wisdom has had it that the nation's increasing foreign aggression was driven and maintained not by the emperor but by an elite group of Japanese militarists, the reality, as witnessed here, is quite different.

Bix documents in detail the strong, decisive role Hirohito played in wartime operations, from the takeover of Manchuria in 1931 through the attack on Pearl Harbor and ultimately the fateful decision in 1945 to accede to an unconditional surrender. In fact, the emperor stubbornly prolonged the war effort and then used the horrifying bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with the Soviet entrance into the war, as his exit strategy from a no-win situation. From the moment of capitulation, we learn how American and Japanese leaders moved to justify the retention of Hirohito as emperor by whitewashing his wartime role and reshaping the historical consciousness of the Japanese people.

The key to this strategy was Hirohito's alliance with General MacArthur, who helped him maintain his stature and shed his militaristic image, while MacArthur used the emperor as a figurehead to assist him in converting Japan into a peaceful nation. Their partnership ensured that the emperor's image would loom large over the postwar years and later decades, as Japan began to make its way in the modern age and struggled - as it still does - to come to terms with its past.

Until the very end of a career that embodied the conflicting aims of Japan's development as a nation, Hirohito remained preoccupied with politics and with his place in history. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan provides the definitive account of his rich life and legacy. Meticulously researched and utterly engaging, this book is proof that the history of 20th-century Japan cannot be understood apart from the life of its most remarkable and enduring leader.

©2016 Herbert P. Bix (P)2018 Tantor アジア 世界 戦争・紛争 政治・政府 政治・行動主義 政治学 政治家 日本 歴史・理論 第二次世界大戦 軍

こちらもおすすめ

『Emperor of Japan』のカバーアート
Emperor of Japan

著者： Donald Keene

『Embracing Defeat』のカバーアート
Embracing Defeat

著者： John W. Dower

『In Praise of Shadows』のカバーアート
In Praise of Shadows

著者： Junichiro Tanizaki

『A Brief History of Japan』のカバーアート
A Brief History of Japan

著者： Jonathan Clements

『The Conquest of Happiness』のカバーアート
The Conquest of Happiness

著者： Bertrand Russell

『China and Japan』のカバーアート
China and Japan

著者： Ezra F. Vogel

批評家のレビュー

"A historical bombshell.... Compelling.... The most controversial book yet on Japan's previous emperor." (The Economist)
すべて表示
最も関連性の高い
I read Bix's book in a largely defunct ebook format years ago, and remember it as always interpreting everything in a way that prevents his subject in the worst light possible. That's fine for him, I guess: he has academic freedom. (Although I wish laymen would stop assuming his view is the consensus among historians: it rarely is.)

But was his prose this sarcastic? Or is that all on Jonathan Yen? The most glaring historical error I've noticed so far in this audiobook appears to split the blame roughly 50-50: Bix wrote "The Kujō were a branch of the ancient Fujiwara, a lineage that reached back to the late twelfth century", which can very easily be read as saying the origins of the Fujiwara clan lie in the late 1100s (a separate passage MUCH later in the book makes it clear that Bix knew the correct history and that this is just a case of careless writing); Yen reads it in a manner that very strongly implies he interpreted it the wrong way.

No lay listener should rely on Yen's interpretation of Bix's interpretation unless they already have a grounding in this topic.

Propaganda, not bad enough to say poorly written

問題が発生しました。数分後にもう一度お試しください。