Book Review

Asia

This is an extensively researched, analytical study designed to delve into the mode of thinking that governed Emperor Shōwa's (Hirohito's) political life and the role he played in the decision-making process of prewar Japan. The main thesis presented by Peter Wetzler is that Hirohito's governing motivation was the preservation of the imperial house and the kokutai (national polity).	1
The author reviews the role that Hirohito played in the decision-making process by examining his participation in the series of war plans devised by the army and navy, beginning with the 1936 plan that envisioned war with the United States. Wetzler points out that Hirohito participated in decision making but was not the sole decision maker; he helped build consensus as one of an elite of policy makers.	2
On the decision to attack Pearl Harbor, the author agrees with the Japanese critics of the emperor that he was fully informed of the plan by a series of informal meetings with General Hideki Tōjō and his staff, so he was not confronted with just the final decision arrived at by the government and military officials. In the postwar years, Hirohito claimed that as a constitutional monarch he could not go against the government's decision and that opposition could have resulted in a coup. Wetzler cites this as proof that the emperor's primary concern was the preservation of the imperial house. Most scholars agree that if the Emperor had opposed going to war with the United States, Tōjō would have acceded to his wishes. Hirohito seems to have gone along with the force of events. Wetzler concludes that the emperor was an opportunist, neither a militarist nor an advocate of peace.	3
To understand the basis for the emperor's seeming obsession with preserving the imperial house and the kokutai, Wetzler reviews Hirohito's educational background and focuses on the values instilled in him by his teachers, Sugiura Shigetake and Shiratori Kurakichi. Sugiura centered his teachings on concepts and works that stressed the historical roots and values of the imperial dynasty. Historian Shiratori likewise emphasized the sacredness of the imperial dynasty, stressing the superiority of Japanese history and ethics over those of China, from which Japan selectively adapted its cultural and ethical concepts.	4
Wetzler focuses on Makino Nobuaki as the influential personality at the court. Saionji Kimmochi, a liberal aristocrat, was the most important prewar figure at the court and in the politics of the 1920s and 1930s, but Wetzler evidently chose to focus on Makino, a "liberal bureaucrat," because of his official capacity as imperial household minister (1921–1925) and lord keeper of the privy seal (1925–1935), and also because his role at the court has not been given much attention. Makino was an elitist and a nationalist but also a moderate. He, like other court advisers and civil officials, was committed to upholding the sacrosanct imperial tradition.	5
In order to protect the emperor's status as ruler and embodiment of the sanctity of the kokutai, Saionji and Makino endeavored to prevent Hirohito from becoming directly involved in political affairs and to keep him confined to ceremonial functions. His role was to reign but not to rule. During his regency (1921–1926), Hirohito remained politically uninvolved, but when he assumed the emperorship (1926) he began to assert himself on certain occasions. Shielding the emperor from political responsibility, Wetzler concludes, was partly responsible for the rise of the military, because under the existing system the military had direct access to the emperor.	. . .