Reader Score
84%
84% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 4 reviews on
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.
“Would you happen to have a Ben Hur 1860? The third edition, the one with the erratum on page 116.” Don’t follow me on Facebook because I’m not there.
Hard to make out more than: BLIND AMBITION; John Dean THE CIVIL WAR; Shelby Foote (three vols, hardcover) EMBRACING DEFEAT; John Dower CAESAR: Life of a Colossus, Adrian Goldsworthy Stumped by the DeGaulle book. https://t.co/XCdrfYa3i3 https://t.co/miAccmJRql
Former blue-check person. On Substack: 'Breaking the News' https://t.co/JazeKA9uCl On Bluesky @jfallows Also https://t.co/CJJn7RbEsg
@BeijingPalmer For Japan, I'd say 'Embracing Defeat' by John Dower. (Also, Iraq was to a significant degree a self-inflicted US disaster. See 'Blind Into Baghdad' by author I will not name.)
Emmy winner, Jeopardy TOC winner, author of 'Secrets of the Buzzer' and 'The Ultimate Droodles Compendium.'
@JamesKestrel @JamesFallows @ricredman @BeschlossDC I just finished "Embracing Defeat," the 1999 Pulitzer-winning history on that topic by John Dower, and actually wondered if you'd used it for source material for 'Five Decembers.' It's very good.