"Hirohito"
		How was “Hirohito” reviewed in the US media? New York Times: "The Chrysanthemum Throne" by Ronald Spector, November 19, 2000 In the book review section of the New York Times on November 19, 2000, a history and international relations professor at George Washington University, praises "Hirohito" as a "fascinating book." However, at the same time, Spector urges readers to keep three things in mind: "First, studies of Hirohito's reign are still in their early stages. Second, as Bix himself points out, many key documents pertaining to the emperor (...) are still tightly held by the Imperial household. Finally there are, and probably always will be, differing views of this era." The reviewer mentions the work of John Dower as an example reminding readers that Dower "gives a somewhat different and more complex view of the emperor's role in the Japanese surrender and in the Occupation." The Washington Post: "Tarnished God" by Gar Alperovitz, September 3, 2000 In the book review section of the Washington Post on September 3, 2000, Gar Alperovitz, professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, whose most recent book is "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb," points out that "(t)o the extent they remember him at all, most Americans think of Hirohito, the emperor of Japan from 1926 until his death in 1989, as a cartoon-like figure. One cartoon portrays him as a small Japanese man in striped trousers and formal morning coat submitting himself to a towering, open-shirted Gen. Douglas MacArthur after Japan's defeat. In another, we see the same man, older, studiously working over a microscope as a marine biologist. In still another, he is very young and sits awkwardly upon a white horse in front of the troops under his command. Rarely, if ever, do we see him as a man of power, of personal ambition--a political leader deciding life and death issues and the fate of millions of people." He predicts that "Herbert Bix's highly readable and massively researched biography" will almost certainly shatter the old images. Another interesting paragraph in his review suggests that the primary goal of "Hirohito" is not simply to accuse Japan but to say that "at the core of Hirohito's power was something much more forceful: a religious-political ideal that served to legitimize his and the state's interests as flowing from god-given right." Alperovitz feels that Bix suggests a parallel between this cultural construction of Japan as a land of deity and the American idea of manifest destiny. This also served to justify expansionism--and the obliteration of those, such as native Americans, who got in the way. In both cases, claims of a larger moral mission served to marginalize political opponents and blunt moral challenges. According to this reviewer, Bix claims that "Hirohito became the prime symbol of his people's repression of their wartime past (...) so long as the Japanese do not pursue his central role in the war, they [do] not have to question their own." Alperovitz points out that Bix argues that the future of Japanese democracy, "depends on demolishing the emperor-related myths that have helped generate a sense of dependence and powerlessness in the face of authority." Alperovitz praises that Bix's controversial and important book is a major contribution to that end." The San Francisco Chronicle: "The Emperor As Warlord; An American Historian Charges that Hirohito took an active part in World War II" by Charles Burress, October 3, 2000. In an interview with Herbert Bix on October 3, 2000 Charles Burress, stuff-writer of the San Francisco Chronicle and well-known researcher on Japan coverage in the U.S. media, points out that "if Hirohito's real role has been misunderstood, so, to some extent, has the context of Bix's book." According to Burress, although "It has been portrayed as a sharp reversal of the orthodox view, but many historians have already portrayed Hirohito as more than a passive figurehead (...) Several said they are eager to see the evidence in Bix's book." As for the concern that US media have showed that no Japanese publishing company would publish a version of this book translated into Japanese, Burress posits that "Japanese reactions vary widely. A fanatic shot the mayor of Nagasaki 10 years ago for suggesting that Hirohito bore partial responsibility for the war, while a number of scholars have published books and articles showing Hirohito playing a major role. And Bix readily acknowledges that he relied heavily on materials already published in Japan."