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This book is totally typical for Ian Buruma, a man who cannot read Japanese comic books without seeing ghosts of militarism ("Japanese Mirror" 1980) and who has defended British colonialism in his columns for The Guardian. You will find yourself nodding in agreement thoughout the book if you already believe that Japan is intrinsically an evil society populated by people who are a hair trigger away from commiting war atrocities if a gun is handed to them. I cannot imagine what kind of an unhappy childhood he had spent in Japan. This is an entertaining entry level book which is balanced on the surface. But he paints a century of Japanese history as if it was structurally destined to march into militarism. He neglects to mention that Turkey, Ethiopia, Thailand, Nepal and Japan were the only "colored" nations to remain independant until Pearl Harbor. Nor is there any reference to how close Japan was to becoming another opium infested European colony. He downplays that Japan's military build up was driven by fear of being colonized. Like so many historians of the "Evil Japan" school, he misses the fascinating story of how Japan's initially defensive military transformed into a fearsome expansionistic force. Analysis of this development is crucial to keeping such things from happening again. But for Buruma, it was destined to be expansionist to begin with. Japan was always evil. Although Buruma rightfully criticizes Japan's colonialist past, he does not waste the opportunity to infer, ever so subtly, that Western colonialism was somehow more humane and civilized than Eastern colonialism. Like all Japan demonizers, he attributes Japan's current ills, both real and imagined, to the fact that Emperor Hirohito was not executed after the Second World War. This bit of scapegoating is as worn out as the Kennedy Assasination. There was supposedly a dark conspiracy that involved Gen. MacArthur and some unnamed Japanese figures (always unnamed) that reached a closed-doors deal to save the Emperor. Like the unknown conspirators of the Kennedy Assasination, these shadowy figures are supposed to be lurking in the back corridors of Japanese power to this day. If they were power brokers in MacArthur's time, they must be quite marvelously venerable by now. He concludes his book with the predictable alarmist dogma that Japan could become a militaristic nation one more time and threaten the Western world if it does not "confront its past". Apparently, 6 trillion yen in "aid" paid to China as unofficial and voluntary war reparations and some more to other nations - all with the consent of Japanese voters - does not count as confronting its past. Once again, there is no mention that Britain never apologized to Zimbabwe either. If his moralizing were to be applied fairly, every country that mistreated its colonies up to about the 1940s (a time when colored people - whether they lived in colonies or not - were lynched to death for such offences as voting) need to "confront their pasts" in ways that meet the standards Buruma sets for Japan. Nations that do not, by Buruma's reasoning, are a militaristic threat to the civilized world. Shortly after the First Gulf War, Japanese professor Shiro Takahashi asked some 300 college students if they would fight for their country if Japan was ruthlessly invaded as was Kuwait. Only one answered that he would. All others answered that they would either surrender or run. This was the fruit of fifty years of pacifist education. Buruma turns around and calls this an "infantile dependence" on American military strength (which it may be), but I wonder how this reality fits into Buruma's picture of a dangerous nation that could plunge into militarism again. He does not seem to see the contradiction. Another problem, which is all too common among so many Western specialists, is that Buruma presents Japan as a monolithic entity instead of a diverse and chaotic democracy. Japanese prime ministers may visit the Yasukuni Shrine, but none of them, so far as I can remember, have ever enjoyed the widespread popularity or support of, say, George W. Bush. Some Arab extremists have presented a monotone grasp of "America" as a monolithic evil entity without any regard for the existance of numerous people like Noam Chomsky. Buruma presents (and has presented throughout his career) the same monotone view of Japan, as if no Japanese has ever protested against official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. (This is ironic since Buruma, along with Herbert Bix, John Dower and many others, has basically lifted his ideas from the writings of all the "Chomskies" of Japan - while pretending that they did not exist) Just as the policies of president Bush is not the whole picture of America, the actions of much less popular Japanese politicians do not make up the whole of Japan. Academic writers are supposed to make people see that. As long as professional hate mongers like Buruma can pass as experts on Japan, it is prudent that Japan remains in "infantile dependence" and avoid building its own defence capabilities. Who is to say that Japan will not follow the fate of Iraq and be attacked for suspicions of developing "militarist tendancies"? It takes a detached reader to see how books like this are part of the cause of Japan's curious state in the world. Buruma along with Herbert Bix, David Bergamini, Iris Chang, Ivan P. Hall et al compose one view of Japan, but have you ever seen a book from the opposing camp? (A healthy diversity can be seen in the books about other nations. Buruma himself is a defender of Britain's colonialism even though he is critical of Japan's.) The overwhelming tidalwave of Japanophobia disguised as academic tretise shapes opinions on Japan around the world, and consequently shapes Japan. This book is worth reading only as an example of such a force.