Book Review - Japan's Decisive Century by Shigeru Yoshida

Japan's Decisive Century by Shigeru Yoshida

New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967          LC No. 67-22296

This is a book that is in turn informative and disingenuous: written by Shigeru Yoshida, Japan's Prime Minister in 1946-47 and again from 1948-54, it originally written as an essay for the Britannica Book of the Year in 1967.

Given its origin, the broad-brush approach Yoshida takes is understandable. What is less understandable is how one writes a history of Japan covering the years 1867-1967 and entirely leaves out the years 1931-1945, which - to this reader at least - would seem to be the crux of Japan's "decisive century".

Yoshida himself was not an advocate of war with the Western Powers in the 1930s, but chooses not to discuss in any way the progression of Japan from an Imperial Power that was Asian in outlook to one that waged war across the Pacific. This is a fatal lacunae in this book, and one which turns it into a work of two separate parts.

The first, dealing with the opening of Japan to the West, shows how Japan worked hard at adopting from the West the institutions, technology, and skills to enable them to remain - almost uniquely in Asia - free of Western domination. Yoshida then posits that Japan, after victory over Russia, lost her way morally, which allowed the militarists to dominate.

He weaves a similar story around Japan's post-war renaissance, with his people's ability to absorb what they needed from others, and working hard together with a spirit of sacrifice to enable the country once again to grow. At the time of writing, Yoshida was concerned that moral drift had once again become a danger to the country.

Yoshida has written this book with his eye on Western readers rather than on reaching for historical truth. As such it is a fascinating insight into how this post-war leader viewed his country's recent past.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell