Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
From the prizewinning author of the acclaimed The Blood Telegram, a landmark, magisterial history of the postwar trial of Japan’s leaders as war criminals – and their impact on the modern history of Asia and the world.
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the victorious powers turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. To them, it was clear that Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for their crimes.
For the Allied powers, the trials were an opportunity both to render judgment on their vanquished foes and to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war. For the Japanese leaders on trial, it was their chance to argue that their war had been waged to liberate Asia from Western imperialism and that the court was no more than victors’ justice.
Gary J. Bass' Judgement at Tokyo is the product of a decade of research, a magnificent, riveting story of wartime action, dramatic courtroom battles, and the epic formative years that set the stage for the postwar era in the Asia–Pacific.
Review
Judgement at Tokyo is a work of singular importance – one that manages to be balanced, original, human, accessible, and riveting. It is of huge relevance to our times in the search for a decent place for ideas about justice and their delivery in a world that is infused with double standards and patent hypocrisies. -- Philippe Sands, author of East-West Street
In this deeply researched account, Bass turns our focus to the negotiations in Japan after World War II. A sweeping two-year drama in and of itself, the trial also created conditions that continue to reverberate throughout Asia. ― The Washington Post
Exhaustive and fascinating . . . Placing the trial firmly in the context of colonialism, racial attitudes, the Cold War, and post-colonial Asian politics, Bass argues, quite rightly, that the trial 'reveals some of the reasons why a liberal international order has not emerged in Asia.' ― The New Yorker
'A magisterial account . . . Bass is a marvelous writer. . .. Readers will learn a great deal about a fascinating time that saw the collapse of Western empire in the Far East, the rise of Communist China, and the astonishing birth of a modern, peaceful, democratic Japan.' ― Air Mail
In this superb work of transnational history, Gary Bass uses the Tokyo trial to illuminate the making of the modern world. -- Ramachandra Guha, author of India After Gandhi
To understand the dynamics of post-World War II Asia, Gary Bass’s Judgement at Tokyo is fascinating, essential reading. -- Barbara Demick, Baillie Gifford prize-winning author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Gary Bass has written nothing less than a masterpiece. With epic research and mesmerizing narrative power, Judgement at Tokyo has the makings of an instant classic in the literature on China, Japan, and beyond. -- Evan Osnos, US National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
A vivid and meticulously crafted account, rich in detail, fair-minded, superbly nuanced. -- Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam
Destined to become a classic, Judgement at Tokyo is meticulously researched and elegantly written: it is also a necessary book. Bass's book will be read and reread by all who hope to understand how the tribunals after Japan's Pacific War continue to shape twenty-first-century Japan. -- Anna Sherman, author of The Bells of Old Tokyo
About the Author
Gary J. Bass is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of The Blood Telegram, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction, Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention, and Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals. A former reporter for The Economist, Bass has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Washington Post amongst others. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
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