Japan Historiography

Left-wing Japanese Historians

• Date the beginning of the Pacific War to 1931, with the Manchurian Incident

• Refer to the conflict as a “15-year war”

• Place responsibility on a “militarist capitalist clique”, not the Japanese people

• Argue the Japanese public was indoctrinated by pre-war education

• Emphasise Japanese militarism and capitalism as key causes

Right-wing Japanese Historians

• Identify December 1941 as the start of the “Great East Asia War”

• Support wartime propaganda that Japan was liberating Asia from Western colonialism

• Argue Japanese occupation enabled post-war independence movements in Asia

• Claim Japan was forced into war by the US oil embargo

• Minimise or justify Japanese aggression

Extreme Right-wing Japanese Historians (e.g. Masaaki Tanaka)

• Argue the Rape of Nanjing was a fabrication

• Deny or heavily minimise Japanese war crimes

• Present Japan as a victim of historical distortion

Nationalist / Spiritual Right-wing Historians (e.g. Hayashi)

• Describe the war as a “Holy War”

• Frame it as a 100-year struggle with the West, beginning with US arrival in 1853

• View Japanese expansion as defensive and historically inevitable

Orthodox US Historians

• Date the start of the Pacific War to 1937, with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident

• Argue Japan waged a war of aggression and expansion

• This view was formalised in the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal

• Emphasise Pearl Harbor as decisive evidence of Japanese aggression

• Claim Japan violated the Geneva Convention

• Hold Japan wholly responsible for the war

Critical Japanese Historians (e.g. Saburo Ienaga)

• Strongly critical of Japan’s role in causing the war

• Identify Japanese imperialism and militarism as central causes

• Align broadly with the orthodox interpretation but from a Japanese perspective

Japanese Revisionist Perspective (Michiko Hasegawa)

• Argues Japan went to war only because of the US oil embargo

• Dates the start of the war to December 1941

• Shifts responsibility away from Japan and toward US economic pressure

US Revisionist Historians – Roosevelt Revisionism (e.g. Boyle)

• Argue President Roosevelt provoked Japan

• Claim the US had broken Japanese codes and knew Pearl Harbor was coming

• Suggest Roosevelt suppressed warnings to ensure US entry into the war

• Quote Boyle (1993): Roosevelt allowed a successful surprise attack

Traditionalist Historians on the Emperor’s Role

• Argue Emperor Hirohito opposed war

• Claim he was powerless against militarist leaders

• Portray the emperor as passive and constrained

Revisionist Historians on the Emperor (Post-1989)

• Argue Hirohito was active and aggressive, not passive

• Suggest he supported expansionism

• Claim he could have intervened but chose not to

Sterling Seagrave’s Interpretation

• Argues Emperor Hirohito was a driving force behind expansion

• Claims he deliberately allowed militarism

• Presents the emperor as morally and politically responsible

US Revisionist Historians (Vietnam War Era)

• Argue Japan aimed to remove Western imperial influence from Asia

• Suggest US inaction in China during the 1930s encouraged Japanese expansion

• Challenge the orthodox view of sole Japanese responsibility