Peter Mauch - Böcker

As Japan’s pre–Pearl Harbor ambassador to the United States, Admiral Nomura Kichisaburō (1877–1964) played a significant role in a tense and turbulent period in Japanese–U.S. relations. Scholars tend to view his actions and missteps as ambassador as representing the failure of diplomacy to avert the outbreak of hostilities between the two paramount Pacific powers.This extensively researched biography casts new light on the life and career of this important figure. Connecting his experiences as a naval officer to his service as foreign minister and ambassador, and later as “father” of Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Forces and proponent of the U.S.–Japanese alliance, this study reassesses Nomura’s contributions as a hard-nosed realist whose grasp of the underlying realities of Japanese–U.S. relations went largely unappreciated by the Japanese political and military establishment.In highlighting the complexities and conundrums of Nomura’s position, as well as the role of the Imperial Navy in the formulation of Japan’s foreign policy, Peter Mauch draws upon rarely accessed materials from naval and diplomatic archives in Japan as well as various collections of personal papers, including Nomura’s, which Mauch discovered in 2005 and which are now housed in the National Diet Library.

The definitive biography of Tojo Hideki, the controversial general who redefined military leadership in Showa-era Japan before his downfall during World War II.The military general who became Emperor Hirohito’s prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan into World War II and—after spectacular losses—was eventually executed as a war criminal. Yet Tojo was far more than his ignominious end. In fact, as Peter Mauch argues, he was one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished military statesmen.Over a career of some forty years, Tojo successfully launched himself into the highest echelons of political power. He was not only a tactical genius, Mauch shows, but also a savvy administrator, a fierce imperialist, and a deeply loyal advisor to the emperor. Tojo’s career took off with the notorious Kwantung Army in Manchuria, where he played a key role in escalating the Sino-Japanese War during the 1930s. As he rose through the ranks, becoming minister of war and then army chief of staff, he honed the efficiency of the Imperial Army and enhanced its influence within the emperor’s court. All the while, he deftly negotiated the fractious military rivalries that arose wherever he went. Brilliant, ambitious, and often ruthless, Tojo reached political heights that were perhaps matched only by his precipitous fall in the final months of World War II.Layered and evocative, Tojo is at once a riveting military history of Showa-era Japan and a nuanced portrait of the relentless personality at its center.

The most important bilateral relationship in Asia since the end of World War II is assuredly between the United States and Japan. Despite the geographical and cultural differences between these two nations, as well as the bitterness leftover from the war, an amicable and prosperous relationship has developed between the two countries boasting the world's largest economies. As the 21st century progresses, the continuing goodwill between the U.S. and Japan is of the utmost importance, as the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific depends on their cooperation and efforts to contain destabilizing factors in the area.The Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan Relations traces this one hundred and fifty year relationship through a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, a bibliography, and cross-referenced dictionary entries on key persons, places, events, institutions, and organizations. Covering everything from Walt Whitman's poem, A Broadway Pageant, commemorating the visit of the Shogun's Embassy to the U.S. in 1860, to zaibatsu, this ready reference is an excellent starting point for the study of Japan's dealings with the U.S.

The most important bilateral relationship in Asia since the end of World War II is assuredly between the United States and Japan. Despite the geographical and cultural differences between these two nations, as well as the bitterness leftover from the war, an amicable and prosperous relationship has developed between the two countries boasting the world's largest economies. As the 21st century progresses, the continuing goodwill between the U.S. and Japan is of the utmost importance, as the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific depends on their cooperation and efforts to contain destabilizing factors in the area.The A to Z of United States-Japan Relations traces this 150 year relationship through a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, a bibliography, and cross-referenced dictionary entries on key persons, places, events, institutions, and organizations. Covering everything from Walt Whitman's poem, "A Broadway Pageant," commemorating the visit of the Shogun's Embassy to the U.S. in 1860, to zaibatsu, this ready reference is an excellent starting point for the study of Japan's dealings with the U.S.

This wide-ranging collection seeks to reassess conventional understanding of Japan’s Asia-Pacific War by defamiliarizing and expanding the rhetorical narrative. Its nine chapters, diverse in theme and method, are united in their goal to recover a measured historicity about the conflict by either introducing new areas of knowledge or reinterpreting existing ones. Collectively, they cast doubt on the war as familiar and recognizable, compelling readers to view it with fresh eyes.Following an introduction that problematizes timeworn narratives about a "unified Japan" and its "illegal war" or "race war," early chapters on the destruction of Japan’s diplomatic records and government interest in an egalitarian health care policy before, during, and after the war oblige us to question selective histories and moral judgments about wartime Japan. The discussion then turns to artistic/cultural production and self-determination, specifically to Osaka rakugo performers who used comedy to contend with state oppression and to the role of women in creating care packages for soldiers abroad. Other chapters cast doubt on well-trod stereotypes (Japan’s lack of pragmatism in its diplomatic relations with neutral nations and its irrational and fatalistic military leadership) and examine resistance to the war by a prominent Japanese Christian intellectual. The volume concludes with two nuanced responses to race in wartime Japan, one maintaining the importance of racial categories while recognizing the "performance of Japaneseness," the other observing that communities often reflected official government policies through nationality rather than race. Contrasting findings like these underscore the need to ask new questions and fill old gaps in our understanding of a historical event that, after more than seventy years, remains as provocative and divisive as ever.Defamiliarizing Japan’s Asia-Pacific War will find a ready audience among World War II historians as well as specialists in war and society, social history, and the growing fields of material culture and civic history.

Designed and written by professionals with extensive ISO 9000 Certification experience, the techniques and forms in this Manual have been used successfully to achieve certification at over 50 companies. The 90-Day ISO 9000 Manual provides the basic system you need in place to satisfy an ISO 9000 Audit.First, ISO 9000 is explained and the registration process described in detail. Next, you are taken through exactly what you need to do to prepare for an audit. You are given the working instructions and forms you need to meet certification requirements. The forms are unique and have been designed specifically for ISO 9000 standards.Since ISO 9000 is not designed to be a TQM program the authors have also included a special section that provides the information, instructions and forms needed for quality audits such as Q94 or Z1. If you want to take your program further than just ISO 9000 certification, the material is available to you.The 90-Day ISO 9000 Manual includes the latest published draft of Q91 DIS, which is the formal public review copy. Companies that have recently been audited have noticed that certain improvements in documentation have been expected by registrars. These improvements require rewording the old standards. The new standards have been incorporated in this manual and several schemes have been modified.The authors of The 90-Day ISO 9000 Manual have extensive experience working on ISO 9000 standards review, consulting with companies developing programs, registrar experience and international ISO 9000 activities. This manual will reflect a practical approach to registration for the next five years.

Designed and written by professionals with extensive ISO 9000 Certification experience, the techniques and forms in this Manual have been used successfully to achieve certification at over 50 companies. The 90-Day ISO 9000 Manual provides the basic system you need in place to satisfy an ISO 9000 Audit.First, ISO 9000 is explained and the registration process described in detail. Next, you are taken through exactly what you need to do to prepare for an audit. You are given the working instructions and forms you need to meet certification requirements. The forms are unique and have been designed specifically for ISO 9000 standards.Since ISO 9000 is not designed to be a TQM program the authors have also included a special section that provides the information, instructions and forms needed for quality audits such as Q94 or Z1. If you want to take your program further than just ISO 9000 certification, the material is available to you.The 90-Day ISO 9000 Manual includes the latest published draft of Q91 DIS, which is the formal public review copy. Companies that have recently been audited have noticed that certain improvements in documentation have been expected by registrars. These improvements require rewording the old standards. The new standards have been incorporated in this manual and several schemes have been modified.The authors of The 90-Day ISO 9000 Manual have extensive experience working on ISO 9000 standards review, consulting with companies developing programs, registrar experience and international ISO 9000 activities. This manual will reflect a practical approach to registration for the next five years.

This book is based on the recent discovery of the personal papers of Kichisaburo Nomura – Japanese admiral, one-time foreign minister, pre-Pearl Harbor ambassador to the United States, and “spiritual godfather” of postwar Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force. The volume reproduces Nomura’s occupation-era correspondence with his American friends and associates, including Navy Secretary Daniel Kimball, SCAP Political Advisor William Sebald, former ambassadors William Castle and Joseph Grew, Army and Navy Journal owner John Callan O’Laughlin, as well as Admirals William Pratt, Arleigh Burke, Charles Turner Joy, Ralph Oftsie, and Harold Martin. The correspondence is extraordinarily revealing, and provides rich insights into domestic conditions in occupied Japan, U.S. policies toward occupied Japan, the Cold War in Asia, and Japan’s eventual rearmament. In this way, the book enables readers to confront for themselves a hitherto largely neglected attempt at defining and cementing the post-WWII Japanese-U.S. partnership.