| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Walter E. Grunden. Secret Weapons and World War II: Japan in the Shadow of Big Science. (Modern War Studies.) Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 2005. Pp. xi, 335. $39.95.

The literature on Japan's war in Asia and the Pacific has expanded well beyond the realms of diplomacy, military operations, tales of atrocities, and debate over the atomic bombings. That is a welcome trend, for the Asian region in World War II still plays second fiddle to the lead of the European theater in the historiography. Walter E. Grunden's important study of the Japanese failure to develop a viable scientific program for use in the conflict will help rectify such eurocentrism (as well as the prevailing American-centered perspective) by integrating the Japanese side into research on the workings of war, society, government, and science. Before delving into the details of Japan's scientific endeavors in each chapter, Grunden discusses the Russian, German, British, and American technological efforts in the fields of atomic, electric, aeronautical, and chemical and biological weapons. This points to ways in which further multinational research will fruitfully set the war in its truly global context. In addition, Grunden draws on Japanese sources to great effect, despite the efforts of Japanese officials to cover up postwar investigations into the horrors of Unit 731 and other atrocities. His is a careful study that addresses the cardinal reason that Japan did not—indeed, could not—win: it simply lacked the resources. Those resources included not only raw materials but the proper and creative coordination of the scientific establishment with the war effort.

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