Noriko Kawamura – författare

Although events in East Asia were a sideshow in the great drama of World War I, what happened there shattered the accord between Japan and the United States. This book pursues the two-fold question of how and why U.S.-Japanese tensions developed into antagonism during the war by inquiring into the historical sources of both sides. Kawamura explains this complex phenomenon by looking at various factors: conflicts of national interests—geopolitical and economic; perceptual problems such as miscommunication, miscalculation, and mistrust; and, most important of all, incompatible approaches to foreign policy. America's universalism and the unilateralism inherent in Wilsonian idealistic internationalism clashed with Japan's particularistic regionalism and the pluralism that derived from its strong sense of racial identity and anti-Western nationalistic sentiments.By looking at the motives and circumstances behind Japan's expansionist policy in East Asia, Kawamura suggests some of the centrifugal forces that divided the nations and challenged the premise of Wilsonian internationalism. At the same time, through critical examination of the Wilson administration's universalist and unilateral response to Japan's actions, she raises serious questions about the effectiveness of American foreign policy. At the close of the 20th century, after 50 years of Cold War, those in search of a new world order tend to resort to Wilsonian rhetoric. This book suggests that it can be unwise to apply a universalistic and idealistic approach to international conflicts that often result from extreme nationalism, regionalism, and racial rivalry.

This reexamination of the controversial role Emperor Hirohito played during the Pacific War gives particular attention to the question: If the emperor could not stop Japan from going to war with the Allied Powers in 1941, why was he able to play a crucial role in ending the war in 1945? Drawing on previously unavailable primary sources, Noriko Kawamura traces Hirohito’s actions from the late 1920s to the end of the war, analyzing the role Hirohito played in Japan’s expansion. Emperor Hirohito emerges as a conflicted man who struggled throughout the war to deal with the undefined powers bestowed upon him as a monarch, often juggling the contradictory positions and irreconcilable differences advocated by his subordinates. Kawamura shows that he was by no means a pacifist, but neither did he favor the reckless wars advocated by Japan’s military leaders.