A book review of War Without Mercy, Race and Power in the Pacific War (Pantheon 1987)

dowerbook.gif (12243 bytes)dower.gif (38417 bytes)The author, John W. Dower (1938- ) is a Harvard-trained East Asian historian, currently teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He published this book in 1986 at the height of Japan's dominance in the world economy when "Japan-bashing" was in vogue as American car manufacturers struggled to regain a competitive advantage in the world market. During the early 1980s, Professor Dower noticed that much of the anti-Japanese language had origins in the Second World War when racist language dominated the popular and U.S. government-sponsored press. In this book, Dower traces the stereotypes portrayed by the press and government sponsored propaganda machines in both countries, Japan and the U.S., to show how our mutual perceptions helped influenced policymaking and military strategy during and even after the war. I found the book to be very useful in revealing an underlying world of cross-cultural perception, or misperception, looking back fifty-plus years since the end of the war.

The book is divided into three parts:

1) "Enemies," describes the patterns of a race war and the supportive propaganda to fan public sentiments. Both sides argued that the other was guilty of imperialism and racial prejudice to give the moral high ground in the war. In reality, both countries violated their own proposed ideals. Dower is criticized by many for placing the Japanese and American moral arguments on the same level, but for the sake of comparison, this is the only way to do it.

2) "The War in Western Eyes" traces the still 19th century pseudo-scientific racial theories influencing public opinion before and during the war. Anthropologists like Ruth Benedict, were only beginning to break from such theory during the war by proposing that cultural institutions helped develop and perpetuate psychological traits across cultures. These alternative theories were not much better, however, because they still emphasized the uniqueness and unchangeability of peoples. Military intelligence chose to rely on the applied-psychological theories, for example, that Japanese culture was in a stage of adolescence relative to the mature Western nations and could only be broken if it suffered greatly and were guided by the emperor in reform after defeat. Throughout the war, the Japanese caricacture used a range of monkey images, from a viscous King Kong at the start of the war to a tamed chimpanzee image after the war. The War in Western eyes of African-Americans, however, was quite different. Dower gives examples of several African-American organizations reacting positively to initial Japanese successes in the war. A memorable story included is a black soldier who is said to have requested that his epitaph read, "Here lies a black man killed fighting a yellow man for the protection of a white man."

3) "The War in Japanese Eyes" shows how the Japanese were indoctrinated through education and other forms of propaganda that the West represented decadence and racial injustice. In a war-time poster, titled Now is the time to rise! Greater East Asia Holy War, Churchill is depicted as a demon trampling on Indian nationals in bondage. The Japanese alternative was not much better, however, as their "Co-prosperity spheres" in Asia, would be solely controlled by Japanese. Ironically, this sort of "imperial injustice" is part the case Japan proposes it would give if America had to face a War crimes trial of "crimes against humanity."

4) "Prologue: From War to Peace" Dower reviews the carnage of the Second World War and argues effectively, that race and power in the Pacific War did influence outcomes during and even after the war, as Western nations and colored peoples around the world expected concrete reforms eliminate the contradictions in everyone's political-economies. His most provocative proposal argues that racial hatred was behind the prolonging of the war for a year after the Japanese navy had been clearly defeated in the summer of 1944. During this final year of the war more people died than the previous five years combined.

One of the more interesting examples of American misperception of the Japanese before the war was that the Japanese had very poor night vision and could not fly skillfully because of inner ear damage Japanese suffered spending too much time strapped to mother's back as an infant. Consequently, Japanese airpower was not taken seriously until it was too late. Very little attention was paid to the development of the Zero plane, and military strategists did not expect Japan to even be able fly at night as they did to reach Pearl Harbor by daybreak on December 7th 1941. I feel that Dower's book is a must read for anyone interested in the popular perceptions that often underlie apparently logical military strategy. The book traces well the evolution of our views of race around the world over the course of the the twentieth century.

Related Links

Syllabi and related materials utilizing the book in college courses

http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/history/people/grimsley.1/hnew.htm

http://www.oberlin.edu/~history/Courses/Hist_170-1998.htm

http://www.ksu.edu/history/courses/hist514/coursesyll.htm

(specific questions included in the instructions for a take-home exam)

http://www.ksu.edu/history/courses/hist514/514home.htm

http://www.history.uconn.edu/sylfc249.html

Comments I would make to preface a discussion of the book in a class:

Any person of European descent (i.e., white, Anglo-Saxon) who has lived in Hawaii or Japan for more than a couple of months, will experience some form of discrimination due to his or her skin color and eye shape. Coming from mainland America where white Anglo-Saxons are in the majority, this reality came as a shock to me, especially in Hawaii, which I thought had long ago melted into Anglo-American culture except for tourist attractions. I found during my three years studying, working as a teaching assistant at the University of Hawaii, and working part-time as a tour bus guide, that people of Asian ancestry, especially Japanese, were more accepted and welcome in mainstream Hawaiian society than the Anglo. I arrived there in 1993, the 100th anniversary of the U.S. marine invasion and overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in support of U.S. plantation owners, so I learned allot about Hawaiian history of Japanese immigration to the Islands before the First and Second World Wars. I found that from the mid 1800s through to the Second World War, the Japanese population was the largest and most dominant ethnic group on the Islands, despite U.S. control from 1893. Although the trends at the time were to emphasize the patriotic Japanese-Americans who fought valiantly in the Second World War, and the unjust trials and tribulations of Japanese-Americans who were forced into internment camps on the mainland, on the Islands, there was much great support for the Japan during the Second World War. A Japanese History professor of mine, John J. Stephan, wrote a book titled, Hawaii Under the Rising Sun : Japan's Plans for Conquest After Pearl Harbor (University of Hawaii Press, 1984), in which he reviews the actions of the Japanese in Honolulu during and immediately after the war when hundreds of prominent businessmen returned from Japan after the war and quickly reintegrated into the community without question. There were three major Japanese newspapers in Honolulu before and during the war that reflected numerous pro-Japanese viewpoints throughout the war. These examples of Asian favor in Hawaii, not yet an American state, shed light on the torn allegiances among Asians in the Pacific.
How could there be torn allegiences? Weren't the lines obviously drawn between between good and evil? The Allies fighting for freedom against fascism.