Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)It has taken more than six decades after its fall, but at last we have a fine, well-written, well-informed English-language history of the army of imperial Japan. Given the central role that the Japanese Army played in the history of Japan and East Asia generally for half a century, it is remarkable that it has taken so long, but we can be thankful for the result.
The book is superbly balanced and remarkably inclusive. Military, political, social, and economic aspects -- they are all there. It is all somewhat more condensed than one might wish -- an editorial choice, no doubt, rather than any limitation of Drea's knowledge. But the bibliography and notes provide a comprehensive guide to sources both in Japanese and English.
This is a very accessible book. The author provides a framework of historical background that can guide readers not familiar with the details of Japan's history, but does so in a graceful fashion that will not get in the way of those who know Japan better. In particular, readers who simply want to understand the Asian part of World War II clearly should find it easy and fascinating reading.
There is absolutely no way to understand the history of modern Japan without understanding the Japanese Army, and no other book on the Japanese Army in English that can begin to compare with this one.
There is a book of more or less equivalent excellence about the Japanese Navy, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941. But the navy was never as central to Japanese strategy or politics as the army -- the army really drove the train and Drea tells us how. It is best to read this book first, and then go on to the navy.
With the Chinese sounding steadily more like Japan in the late 1920s, this book could scarcely be more timely.
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