Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II is a work of history by John W. Dower, a historian at MIT, about the American occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952. Dower traces how a defeated, militarist nation was remade into a democracy with a constitution that forbids sending its armed forces to fight abroad. He describes the early reforms of the occupation, which extended new rights to women, workers and other groups long shut out of power, and the later shift during the Cold War toward purges of the left, policies favoring business and the partial rebuilding of Japan's military. Throughout, he draws on popular culture, literature and everyday life to show how Japanese people experienced these years. The book also weighs the moral and political questions raised when one nation sets out to rebuild a former enemy. It won the 1999 National Book Award for Nonfiction.