P eter W etzler . Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War

Historians continue to debate many controversial questions surrounding Japan’s defeat and surrender in World War II in Asia and the Pacific. Peter Wetzler’s new book, Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War: The Collapse of an Empire, pursues some of such questions: What were the main reasons for Imperial Japan’s downfall? Why did Japan continue to fight long after all was lost? To answer these questions, Wetzler employs two terms—“state” and “nation”—as key analytical concepts and examines Imperial Japan’s actions between mid-1942 and mid-1945 with special emphasis on the fall of Saipan and the fall of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo’s cabinet in the summer of 1944. He separates the domain of a state, which is “an executive apparatus ruling and administering a defined geographical area,” from a nation, which is a natural human community with “a commonly acknowledged set of beliefs, traditions, and spiritual orientations idolizing and...

Ancient history · Archaeology · Cabinet (room) · Economic history · Empire · Fall of man · Political science · Politics · State (computer science) · Surrender · World War II · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies