Booktalk: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

April 26, 1999

Booktalk: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
Prof. John Dower(Elting E. Morrison Professor of History, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
GSAS Lounge, Philosophy Hall), Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam Ave.) 6:30 PM

Professor John Dower, one of the most distinguished historians of modern Japan, will speak about his newly published book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, a study of the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Prof. Dower has gained preeminence in the field of Japanese studies with his analyses of modern Japanese history and US-Japan relations, breaking new ground through his scholarly use of visual materials and various manifestations of popular culture. His War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1987), won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize, and was hailed by The New Republic as “the most important study of the Pacific War ever published.” Other scholarly publications include: Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience (1979) and Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays (1993). Prof. Dower has also done a great deal of work in other fields, publishing The Elements of Japanese Design (1971); A Century of Japanese Photography (1980); The Hiroshima Murals (1985), an examination of the political art of the painters Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi; and garnering an Academy Award nomination for his production of Hellfire—A Journey from Hiroshima, a documentary film on the work of the Marukis.