Emperor Hirohito reigned for more than sixty years, yet we know little about him or the part he really played in the turbulent history of Showa Japan. Stephen Large draws on a wide range of Japanese and Western sources in his study of Emperor Hirohito's political role in Showa Japan (1926-89). This analysis focuses on key events in his career such as the extent to which he bore responsibility for Japanese aggression in the Pacific in 1941, and explains why Hirohito remains such a contested symbol in Japanese post war politics.

Japan's momentous Showa era began in 1926, when Emperor Hirohito ascended the throne, and ended with his death in 1989. This was a tumultuous period in modern Japanese history--a time of great disaster and tremendous triumph for Japan. This book focuses on the post-war period in Japan when the nation stood at the zenith of her economic power. Today, the term Showa is shorthand for a glamorous period in which, all too briefly, Japan was the richest nation on earth and the envy of the developed world. A growing nostalgia for this period is now memorialized in Japan in a national holiday. It was an era of stratospheric growth which saw Japan's transition from an isolated, impoverished nation to a peaceful one holding an exalted position as the world's second largest economy. But what is the true meaning of the Showa era, and what is its legacy for the Japanese today? In Showa Japan, Hans Brinckmann provides a clear-eyed exploration of the Showa period as it really was--not just a time of wondrous change but of wild excesses that would eventually come crashing down with the bursting of Japan's economic bubble--exactly as occurred in the rest of the world, but almost 20 years earlier! From the heights of extravagance to the lean years that followed, Brinkmann, a long-time resident of Japan, examines the impact of the Showa era and its aftermath on every aspect of Japanese society. Featuring dozens of period photographs, interviews, and a wealth of factual information and personal reflections, this book provides an in-depth portrait of a Japan that once was--as well as a blueprint for one that might still be, if only the lessons of the past could be learned.

For Japan, the reign of Emperor Hirohito - the Showa Era - is all but synonymous with the history of the twentieth century. The story is a dramatic one, with a fascinating cast of characters. In this volume, it is told by one of Japan's most respected economists and historians. Takafusa Nakamura, an almost exact contemporary of the Showa emperor, brings alive not only the events and historical forces that shaped the century, but the effect they had on ordinary citizens. Decade by decade, he describes the way Japan looked and felt, not only to the rest of the world but to itself. He discusses not only the political and economic forces that shaped Japan's history but also the intellectual and cultural background against which historical events took place.

Tegneserie - graphic novel. A autobiographical and historical account of Showa-era Japan

A sweeping yet intimate portrait of World War II’s legacy in Japan Showa 1944-1953: A History of Japan continues Eisner award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki's historical and autobiographical account of Japanese life in the twentieth century. In this volume, the tail-end of the Pacific War and its devastating consequences upon the author and his compatriots loom large. Two rival navies engage in a deadly game of feint and thrust, waging a series of ruthless military campaigns across the Pacific islands. From Guadalcanal to Okinawa, Japan slowly loses ground. When the United States unleashes the atomic bomb–then still a new and now enduringly terrible weapon–it is the ultimate, definitive blow. The catastrophic fallout from both explosions surpasses the limits of popular imagination. Mizuki's own life is irrevocably changed in the shadow of history. After losing an arm during his time in service, the author struggles to forge a path into the future. Should he remain on the island of Rabaul as an honored friend of the local Tolai? Or should he return to the rubble of Japan and return to his earliest artistic inclinations? This penultimate installment of a landmark series is a searing condemnation of war, told with the deft hand of Japan's most celebrated cartoonist.

The Showa Era in Japan commenced in December 1926, when Emperor Showa ascended the Throne, and came to an end in January 1989, when His Majesty passed away, ushering in the new Heisei Era. The Showa Era was marked by drastic changes in the economy, society, and political and legal sys tems, which brought about an ebb and flow in criminality and precipitated various criminal policies. From an economical, political, and criminological perspective, the Showa Era stands out as a remarkable period in Japanese his tory. The Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice, which has annually published the White Paper on Crime in Japan since 1960, received Cabinet approval to introduce a special topic section, "Criminal Policy in Sho wa" in the White Paper for 1989, which was published in October the same year. This White Paper is the first comprehensive publication that deals not only with the crime situation but also with the various activities of the criminal justice system, including the police, public prosecutors' offices, courts, correctional institutions, and probation and parole supervision organisations for 63 years.

Yasuoka Shōtarō (1920–2013) was perfectly situated to become Japan's premier chronicler of the Shōwa period (1926–89). Over fifty years as a writer, Yasuoka produced stories, novels, plays, and essays, as well as monumental histories that connected his own life to those of his ancestors. He was also the only major Japanese writer to live in the American South during the Civil Rights Movement, when he spent most of an academic year at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. In 1977, he translated Alex Haley's Roots into Japanese. For a long period, Yasuoka was at the center of the Japanese literary establishment, serving on prize committees and winning the major literary prizes of the era: the Akutagawa, the Noma, the Yomiuri, and the Kawabata. But what makes Yasuoka fascinating as a writer is the way that he consciously, deliberately resisted accepted narratives of modern Japanese history through his approach to personal and collective memory. In Enduring Postwar, the first literary and biographical study of Yasuoka in English, Kendall Heitzman explores the element of memory in Yasuoka's work in the context of his life and evolving understanding of postwar Japan.

A master cartoonist and war vet details Japan's involvement in World War II Showa 1939-1944: A History of Japan continues award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki’s autobiographical and historical account of Showa era Japan. This volume covers the final moments of the lead-up to World War Two and the first few years of the Pacific War; it is a chilling reminder of the harshness of life in Japan during this highly militarized epoch. In Showa 1939-1944, Mizuki writes affectingly about the impact on the Japanese populace of world-changing moments including the devastating Second Sino-Japanese War, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the first half of the Pacific War. On a personal level, these years mark a dramatic transformation in Mizuki’s life, too – his idyllic childhood in the countryside comes to a definitive end when he’s drafted into the army and shipped off to the tiny island of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. His life becomes a constant struggle for survival, not only against the constant Allied attacks but because he must face the harsh discipline of the Japanese army officers. During his time in Rabaul, Mizuki comes to understand the misery and beauty of the island itself—a place that will permanently mark him and haunt him for the rest of his life. Translated from the Japanese by Zack Davisson.

A Familiar Compound Ghost explores the relationship between allusion and the uncanny in literature. An unexpected echo or quotation in a new text can be compared to the sudden appearance of a ghost or mysterious double, the reanimation of a corpse, or the discovery of an ancient ruin hidden in a modern city. In this scholarly and suggestive study, Brown identifies moments where this affinity between allusion and the uncanny is used by writers to generate a particular textual charge, where uncanny elements are used to flag patterns of allusion and to point to the haunting presence of an earlier work. A Familiar Compound Ghost traces the subtle patterns of connection between texts centuries, even millennia apart, from Greek tragedy and Latin epic, through the plays of Shakespeare and the Victorian novel, to contemporary film, fiction and poetry. Each chapter takes a different uncanny motif as its focus: doubles, ruins, reanimation, ghosts and journeys to the underworld.