Judgment at Tokyo

May 1, 2023

Not as discussed as the Nuremberg Trials, the trial of Japan's World War II leaders as war criminals sought redress for the attack on Pearl Harbor; atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and abuses against prisoners of war like the infamous Bataan Death March. The aim was also to create a legal framework for prosecuting future war crimes, even as it gave Japanese leaders an opportunity to argue that the war was waged to liberate Asia from Western imperialism. Pulitzer Prize finalist Bass (The Blood Telegram) chronicles the trial, showing how it shaped the Cold War to come. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2023
An authoritative account of the post-World War II Tokyo war-crimes trial, which was both inadequate in resolution and crucial to building the future of Asia. The global leaders who convened the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials sought to bring to justice the perpetrators of the war and achieve a reckoning for the victims. Yet unlike the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, which attained a "near-universal national repentance and grief that are at the core of German politics and society," the Tokyo trial was marred by politics and the haunting specter of the end-of-war American firebombing of Japanese cities and atomic bomb devastation. As Bass, the author of The Blood Telegram, amply demonstrates in this monumental history, the trial allowed "patriotic quarrels" to fester for decades across the Asia Pacific region. The prosecutors and judges, drawn from 11 Allied nations and three Asian countries (yet glaringly none from Korea or Taiwan), attempted to enshrine international law to combat atrocities against prisoners of war and civilians. The guilt of Emperor Hirohito was hotly debated, though the Americans excused him in order to ease the postwar occupation. While the Americans were gunning for justice for Pearl Harbor, there was vivid witness testimony about the war crimes committed against the Chinese in Manchuria and Nanjing, as well as the "use of sexual violence as a weapon of war." Bass argues convincingly that the failure to prosecute Shirō Ishii, the chief of Unit 731, "Japan's secret biological weapons operation," remains "one of the gravest stains of the Tokyo trial." The author painstakingly delineates the daily toll on the judges and defendants, laying out the strategies of Tojo Hideki, general of the Imperial Japanese Army; Radhabinod Pal, the Indian jurist who vociferously denounced European imperialism in his dissent; and numerous others. Bass consistently demonstrates how the trial reflected the tenor of the postwar geopolitical theater, from the imminent victory of communists in China, to the entrenchment of Cold War thinking. A towering work of research resurrects a pivotal moment in history.

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Starred review from August 28, 2023
This impressive history of the 1946–1948 International Military Tribunal for the Far East describes how Japanese military and civilian leaders were tried for war crimes committed throughout Asia and the Pacific from 1931 to 1945. Bass (The Blood Telegram), a professor of international relations at Columbia University, uses witnesses’ testimonies to offer comprehensive accounts of wartime horrors such as the 1937 Rape of Nanking, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and the barbaric treatment of POWs building the Thai-Burma Railway, where an estimated 12,000 prisoners died. He also describes the politics and legal views of the 11 judges representing the Allies, the personal histories of the 28 leaders on trial, and the machinations of the U.S. to ensure that Emperor Hirohito was not held responsible for the war. The trial was a miscarriage of justice, according to Bass, who explains that the verdicts, which sent seven defendants to the gallows, 16 to life in prison, and acquitted six others, condemned several civilian government ministers who had been held hostage by a crazed, militaristic war cabinet and were unable to express antiwar views for fear of assassination. Bass also dedicates significant space to considering the Japanese defense that the war was necessary to free Asia from Western imperialism, and the divisive effect this discussion had on the trial. Bass astounds with his ability to tie so many complex narratives together. This is a clear-eyed look at a pivotal period in world history.

September 1, 2023

This magisterial history delves into the two-year trial of Japan's military leaders, held before a panel of judges from China, India, the Philippines, Australia, Europe, and Americas, a counterpart to the trial at Nuremberg. The Japan trial was as much about communist revolutions and anticolonialism as it was about assigning responsibility for Pearl Harbor, Bass (politics and international affairs, Princeton Univ., The Blood Telegram) argues, and it provided graphic accounts of the Japanese military's brutality in China, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. Bass provides a lengthy outline of not only the evidence presented in the trial against Japan's leaders but also the conflicts between the judges, best reflected in Radhabinod Pal's dissenting opinion. This book moves beyond the traditional military history to compare Japan's aggression against the communist and anticolonial movements within Asia. The author is ambitious in his attempt to provide a geopolitical frame to the trials, but the number of characters and details may overwhelm some readers. VERDICT A massive history that captures a pivotal moment in Asian history that would affect the latter half of the 20th century.--John Rodzvilla

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.