 Front cover of the hardback first edition | |
| Author | Herbert P. Bix |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
Publication date | September 2000 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 814 |
| ISBN | 0-06-019314-X |
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is a book byHerbert P. Bix covering the reign of EmperorHirohito from 1926 until his death in 1989. It won the 2001Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.[1]
Much of the information in the book was uncovered by Japanese people who worked with Bix, but publishing companies and press inJapan at the time chose not to reveal the information.Bix stated that he did not want the book to be used as a weapon against theJapanese people.[2]
According toHerbert P. Bix, the book came about because of his long-standing personal interest in the Japanese “emperor system” and the availability of new sources after EmperorHirohito’s death.[3] In 1990, the literary magazineBungei Shunjū printed an abridged version of theemperor's 1946 dictation of key events during the first twenty years of his rule to his aides, dubbed the “Monologue” (dokuhakuroku). After reading this text, Bix realised that it was “possible to focus a study on Hirohito, theImperial House, and the ideology of emperorism”.[3] To facilitate research for the book, he waited for other importanthistorical material andprimary sources, such as the seven-volume diary ofNobuhito, Prince Takamatsu, the Emperor's younger brother, to be published.[4]
A second motivation for writing the book was the contextual similarities between prewar Japan and then-contemporary Japan.[3] As the author explains in an interview:
Although Japan’s international situation and strategic position inEast Asia was quite unlike what it had been beforeWorld War II, the parties and the bureaucracy seemed to me to be acting as they had in theEmpire of Japan. They were putting their organizational concerns ahead of the general public concern, acting in their own rather than the national interest. The longer I worked onHirohito, the more I saw opportunities to bring out implicit parallelisms in political behavior between inter-war and wartime imperial Japan and the Japan in which I was living at the end of the twentieth century. I thought that would furnish the historical background for understanding Japanese styles of leadership, especially the distinctive Japanese system of irresponsibility in decision making.[3]
Bix contends thatEmperor Shōwa was not a politically passiveconstitutional monarch and exercised formal authority independent of the establishment.[4] According to him,imperial Japan never adopted Western-styleconstitutional monarchy and theemperor possessed formidable moral, legal, and political power as the head of atheocratic state.[5] He writes that
theemperor, as the source of law, transcended theconstitution, whose purpose was not to place limits on his powers but the very opposite—to protect him and provide a mechanism enabling him to exercise authority unimpeded by limits. This system of government can be called a kind of constitutionally guided but by no meansconstitutional monarchy.[6]
Based on this interpretation,Hirohito actively took part in national policy formulation, issued military orders, and influenced Japanese war strategy and operations.Bix's second thesis is that theemperor's primary motivation behind all these actions was the safeguarding of the throne with him as its occupant.[4]
The book is divided into four parts, coveringHirohito's childhood and school years, hisregency and early reign, his position as commander-in-chief during thewar, and his life in the aftermath ofJapan's defeat.
This section focuses onHirohito's early upbringing and tutelage under military officers and royalist academics. He was “brought up to believe that the entire history of modern Japan centred on hisgrandfather and the small group of talented officials who had assisted him”.[7] Consequently, he strove to emulate hisgrandfather as a model of the perfect monarch. His other childhood hero,Bix claims, wasGeneral Nogi, who instilled in him the virtues of frugality, diligence, and endurance, as well as the belief that “strong resolve could compensate to some extent for physical deficiencies”.[8] While in school, his teachers Shigetake Sugiura, Kura Shiratori, and Tōru Shimizu lectured on the moral and spiritual superiority of theJapanese imperial house, rooted in its divine origins and history of benevolence, and emphasised the centrality of theemperor in fostering progress, national power, and empire-building as a transcendent sovereign who always acts in the state's best interests. The education in his formative years shapedHirohito's outlook and future approach to emperorship, where convictions of his own sacred authority and political inviolability encouraged him to act unilaterally when circumstances demanded it. Instruction inShinto rituals from a young age cultivated his religious identity and conditionedHirohito to dedicate his life to the preservation of the throne out of a deep sense of moral obligation to his ancestors “who were the source of his being, his authority, his household fortune, and indeed whatever sustained both him and the nation”.[9]
In the next section,Bix chroniclesHirohito's path to political ascendancy, beginning with his inauguration as regent for his ailingfather in November 1921. He presided over a time when the prestige of theimperial institution had waned considerably due to hisfather's indisposition, triggering intense public debate about the legitimacy ofmonarchical rule. To reaffirm the importance of themonarchy as the source of the nation's morality and establish a closer relationship between the emperor and his subjects,Hirohito’s court conducted a series of domestic tours and an overseas excursion tocolonial Taiwan. This presaged the start of ideological indoctrination into a cult of emperor worship based on “his double image asliving deity...andsupreme commander of the armed forces”.[10] After hisenthronement in 1926,Hirohito and his court followed an active policy of imperial supervision and intervention in political matters whereby his wishes were executed through frequent informal consultations, briefings, and feedback from theemperor. WhileHirohito initially supported a policy of international diplomacy because of the perceived economic gains,Bix indicates that an unquestioning acceptance of “the coalition nature of government, in which themilitary was privileged over other organs of state”[11] led him and his advisers to ultimately align themselves with themilitary against a backdrop of risingnationalism. As a result, the imperial court failed to address the breakdown in military discipline and condoned theMukden incident, leading directly to theJapanese invasion of Manchuria and outbreak of theSecond Sino-Japanese War.
The third section, the longest at 295 pages, detailsHirohito's role in thewars with China and the Allied Powers. His disregard ofChina as a modern state prompted him to sanction imperial aggression andexpansionism in theChinese mainland, including theNanjing Massacre, use of poison gas, and“burn all, kill all, steal all” annihilation campaigns, provided they did not bringJapan into direct conflict withthe West. To coordinate the war effort,Hirohito established theImperial Headquarters, from which he actively “exercised final command over both armed services”[12] through questions, admonitions, and instructions to hisministers andchiefs of staff. However, beset byinterservice rivalry between thearmy andnavy and his rigid insistence on “unity” which hampered the resolution of strategic differences,Bix holds that theemperor was never able to achieve singularity of purpose. This allowed thecountry to be dragged into aprotracted struggle with China on one hand andwar in the Pacific on the other, despiteHirohito's reluctance to oppose theAllies andJapan's inferior military capabilities.Hirohito's optimism that success could be obtained through hard work no matter the challenges compounded operational problems, as he ordered attacks even in situations where the chances of success were extremely low, refusing to concede defeat. When it was finally clear thatJapan could not win, he delayedsurrender, first by futilely attempting to enlistSoviet mediation to end the war and then by rejecting thePotsdam Declaration unless the existence of themonarchy was guaranteed. This resulted in theatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whichBix asserts provided a convenient excuse forHirohito to framehis decision to surrender as a benevolent act aimed at sparing his people from more suffering, when in reality he wanted to avoid the threat of domestic implosion posed by escalating levels of anti-imperial hostility.
The final section examinesHirohito's fate after the war. He was forced torenounce his divinity andreduced to a purely ceremonial status that held no political authority. Nonetheless, theemperor resisted calls from members of the royal family and prominent left-wing intellectuals to abdicate and cooperated with GeneralDouglas MacArthur,Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, to ensure his continued existence on the throne. The Americans sought to use theemperor as a symbolic figure around whom the Japanese population could rally in the ashes of defeat while the occupiers instituted democratic reforms. By exempting him from theTokyo trials, assigning blame to a small group of military elites, and manipulating court proceedings, they were able to protectHirohito's reign. In reciprocation,Hirohito and his entourage convinced GeneralHideki Tōjō and other high-ranking military officials to accept full accountability for the empire's actions and reconfigured the myth of theimperial house as a vehicle fordemocracy. The failure to tryHirohito,Bix argues, had a profound and long-lasting negative consequence forJapan's acknowledgement of its militaristic past. Since the emperor, a “symbol” of the nation, was not held responsible, this precluded reflection on theirwar responsibility by the Japanese government and people.[13]Hirohito maintained the façade of the emperor as an innocent and powerless bystander until his death. Privately, he lamented his diminished standing as “nothing more than apapier-mâché doll”[14] and attempted to affect government policy by sharing his opinions with government leaders when receiving secret reports on affairs of the state.
A significant theme of the book is the trend ofmilitarism in the absence or ineffectiveness of democratic institutions.[15] Another theme is thedistortion and falsification of historical records.[15] In the book's introduction, theauthor highlights the worrying effects of manipulating and altering a nation's collective memory of the past:
A major concern of this book isHirohito’s failure to publicly acknowledge his own moral, political and legal accountability for the long war fought in his name and under his active direction, both ashead of state andsupreme commander…EventuallyHirohito became the prime symbol of his people’s repression of their wartime past. For as long as they did not pursue his central role in the war, they did not have to question their own.[16]
Referencing historian Yutaka Yoshida's term of the “double standard”, which denotes how to the outside world,Japan appears to accept responsibility for the war per Article 11 of theSan Francisco Peace Treaty but denies it domestically,Bix chargesHirohito with being the ultimate symbol of this duplicity that was facilitated by granting him immunity from punishment.[17] ToBix, theemperor's participation innational ceremonies mourning the war dead served as a subtle and indirect reminder that “the question of his own war responsibility should not be reopened”,[18] effectively constituting a refusal to confront his wartime culpability.
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan received praise from non-specialist readers for its bold premise. George Wehrfritz ofNewsweek called it “myth-shattering”[19] and “superb”;[19]The Economist labelled it a “historical bombshell”.[20] A reviewer inPublishers Weekly commended [Bix for his mastery and extensive use ofprimary sources to provide “a nuanced and balanced portrayal of an [emperor who did not seek out war, but who demanded victories once war began and never took action to stop Japan's reckless descent into defeat”,[21] describing it as “political biography at its most compelling”.[21]
The reaction to the book within the academic community was more mixed. Scholars focused on Bix's sources and translations, the originality of his hypothesis, and the question of the extent to which the emperor was an active agent.
In a largely positive review for theJapanese Journal of Political Science,Andrew Gordon praised Bix for “assembl[ing] an impressive body of evidence to support his major claims”,[22] believing “they will stand up to close scrutiny and serve as a point of departure and reference for future scholars”.[22] He agreed with Bix's assessment of Emperor Shōwa as an activist monarch who took his constitutional duties very seriously, although he felt that too much agency was ascribed to Hirohito in several instances where the available evidence did not ordinarily support such an interpretation. For example, he took issue with [Bix's usage of the word “bestowed” to describe the appointment of AdmiralMakoto Saitō to theprime ministership in 1932 after theassassination of ex-journalist Tsuyoshi Inukai, drawing upon his own study of the matter to clarify that the emperor may simply have been ratifying a decision by the military to not have another civilian Prime Minister. Gordon proposed that “Bix could have strengthened his case by pulling back at such key points in the narrative to discuss the difficulty of assessing responsibility for a decision (or a non-decision) in the opaque and complex politics of imperial Japan”.[23]
Ben-Ami Shillony's article inThe Journal of Japanese Studies was less enthusiastic and questioned the presentation of evidence regarding the book's central argument of Hirohito as a major, active participant in the war. To Shillony, “the author accepts the evidence that fits his theory, but discards that which contradicts it”.[24] He went on to explain that “Bix bases his theory on the vast powers the emperor wielded, on the aggressive edicts, orders, and declarations he issued, and on the hawkish persons he appointed to leadership positions”,[25] while ignoring the reality that such imperial documents were drafted by organs of the state and candidates had been decided beforehand by his advisers. Disagreeing with Bix's inference from diaries and memoirs by those closest to him that the emperor privately counselled and pushed the military towards aggression like a Western commander-in-chief, Shillony countered that “[h]adHirohito been a real leader, likeHitler,Stalin,Roosevelt, orChurchill, he would have issued his orders directly without having to resort to backroom maneuvers”.[24] Moreover, he observed that “Bix shows a visceral aversion to the emperor and themonarchy”[25] and “blames Hirohito for all that went wrong, but does not credit him with any achievement”.[26]
Harry Harootunian was baffled by the glowing reception of Bix's book, both in Japan, where advance sales reportedly surpassed the latest instalment of theHarry Potter series, and overseas.[27] Writing inCritical Asian Studies, he suggested that “advance publicity accompanying the publication of this book overdetermined the importance to Bix's narrative and encouraged the exaggerating of its actual originality”,[28] considering that Japanese historians such asDaikichi Irokawa had already authored works exposing the myth of the Shōwa Emperor as a pacifistconstitutional monarch.[29] Furthermore, Harootunian disputed the book's title and cautioned that “to appeal to a singular life, however important, as a metonym for grasping the larger and unenvisaged totality is always a dangerous tactic for historians and biographers”.[30] He ventured that the relationship between “the making of modern Japan” and Hirohito needs to be considered instead within the broader context of political and economic structures, particularly in terms of how
the reconfiguration of theemperor led to the installation of a sociocultural order founded on the primacy of solidarity that was able to deliver the prospect of even greater political control, disciplined and self-sacrificing work, and global economic status without resorting to outright physical coercion and military violence.[31]
Noriko Kawamura criticised Bix's translations and interpretations in the footnotes ofEmperor Hirohito and the Pacific War. Kawamura remained unconvinced of his reading of the emperor as anabsolute monarch andcommander-in-chief who was actively involved inJapan's war efforts, declaring that “Bix's argument is not supported by evidence. He simply quotes Japanese historians’ assertions from their secondary works, and his use ofprimary sources is misleading. For example, when he quotes from Harada Kumao's diary, he mistranslates it”.[32] Concerning Bix's accusation that the emperor deliberately postponed surrender out of self-interest, she wrote that “the selective use of evidence makes his work unpersuasive”.[33]
Barton Bernstein, in an essay contributed to the anthologyThe End of the Pacific War, commented that despite having elucidated his stand in a series of research articles published in the 1990s, Bix was “[s]till operating with rather limited evidence that failed to establish part of his core argument”[34] in his biography of Emperor Hirohito. In addition, he alluded to how some critics were frustrated that Bix did not address the counter-arguments of other scholars, such as Stephen Large andEdward J. Drea. Bernstein surmised that Bix's neglect of rival points of view may have been part of a deliberate marketing strategy to attract the general, non-academic public, since scholarly discourse “often reaches beyond the tolerance of a lay audience, unless the issues are part of their own deeply felt concerns”.[34] The book seemed to be a commercial success both domestically and abroad—Bernstein reported from a telephone conversation with the author on October 14, 2004 that at least 50,000 hardcopies and 25,000 paperbacks were sold in the United States that year, whereas in Japan, where the biography was split into two parts, the first volume registered approximately 50,000 hardback sales and the second 25,000. The book was also translated into Chinese and Korean.[35]
