Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways neither side could anticipate. Dower, whom Stephen E. Ambrose has called America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific, gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life. Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order. John W. Dower is the Elting E. Morison Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for War Without Mercy.

Author: John W. Dower
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 03/17/1999
Pages: 678
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.55lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 1.90d
ISBN: 9780393046861

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 13.6
Point Value: 47
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 34818 / Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II


Award: National Book Awards - Winner
Award: National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee
Award: Pulitzer Prize - Winner
Award: Kiriyama Prize - Nominee
Award: Lukas Prize Project - Winner
Award: L.A. Times Book Prize - Winner
Award: ALA Notable Books - Winner


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/1999 pg. 193
Publishers Weekly 02/22/1999 pg. 75
Booklist 03/01/1999 pg. 1148
Library Journal 04/01/1999 pg. 113
New York Times 07/04/1999 pg. 16
LJ Best Books of Year 01/01/2000 pg. 49
New York Times 12/05/1999 pg. 88
Entertainment Weekly 08/04/2000 pg. 79
Library Journal 01/01/2000

About the Author
Dower, John W.: - John W. Dower is the author of Embracing Defeat, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; War without Mercy, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Cultures of War. He is professor emeritus of history at MIT. In addition to authoring many books and articles about Japan and the United States in war and peace, he is a founder and codirector of the online "Visualizing Cultures" project established at MIT in 2002 and dedicated to the presentation of image-driven scholarship on East Asia in the modern world. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.