Judgment at Tokyo

World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia

De: Gary J. Bass

Narrado por: Simon Vance

WINNER OF THE ARTHUR ROSS BOOK AWARD FROM THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS • ACCLAIMED AS ONE OF THE YEAR’S 10 BEST BOOKS BY THE WASHINGTON POST • 12 ESSENTIAL NONFICTION BOOKS BY THE NEW YORKER • 100 NOTABLE BOOKS BY THE NEW YORK TIMES • BEST BOOKS BY THE ECONOMIST, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, AND AIR MAIL • 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS BY THE TELEGRAPH • MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE FINALIST • CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE FINALIST • BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE LONGLIST • THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • THE OBSERVER AND THE SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE WEEK • DAUNT BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A landmark, magisterial history of the trial of Japan’s leaders as war criminals—the largely overlooked Asian counterpart to Nuremberg

“Nothing less than a masterpiece. With epic research and mesmerizing narrative power, Judgment at Tokyo has the makings of an instant classic.”
—Evan Osnos, National Book Award–winning author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; shocking atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of prisoners of war in notorious incidents such as the Bataan death march. For the Allied powers, the trial was an opportunity to render judgment on their vanquished foes, but also to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war, building a more peaceful world under international law and American hegemony. 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 victors’ justice.

For more than two years, lawyers for both sides presented their cases before a panel of clashing judges from China, India, the Philippines, and Australia, as well as the United States and European powers. The testimony ran from horrific accounts of brutality and the secret plans to attack Pearl Harbor to the Japanese military’s threats to subvert the government if it sued for peace. Yet rather than clarity and unanimity, the trial brought complexity, dissents, and divisions that provoke international discord between China, Japan, and Korea to this day. Those courtroom tensions and contradictions could also be seen playing out across Asia as the trial unfolded in the crucial early years of the Cold War, from China’s descent into civil war to Japan’s successful postwar democratic elections to India’s independence and partition.

From the author of the acclaimed The Blood Telegram, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, this magnificent history is the product of a decade of research and writing. Judgment at Tokyo is a riveting story of wartime action, dramatic courtroom battles, and the epic formative years that set the stage for the Asian postwar era.

Meticulous

An important book for understanding Asia after WW2. Dense and authoritative with information. A little long winded and almost repetitive at times. I’m not sure how, but I feel it could have been 100-150 pages shorter and I would have taken away the same understanding.

A must read

An important book, the lesser known Tokyo counterpart to the Nuremberg trials. This is a history not just of the trial but of the Pacific War, of racism, of atrocities, and the inevitable denialism they tend to spawn in nationalists, of peace rapidly made with unrepentant militarists in the name of fighting communism.
No one comes off looking very good:
• not the Soviets who could only see wars of aggression in the actions of others but not in their own invasion of Poland
• not the Japanese whose conservative leaders are to this day honoring war criminals
• not the French and English whose main complaint against Japan was that their colonial empire had been stolen away from them
• not the Chinese Communists who in their initial hope to bring Japan away from the US alliance were very happy to downplay the atrocities the people of China had suffered, only to dredge them up in the early '80s when saber rattling would seem to be politically useful
• and certainly not the US, where people have yet to fully grapple with the magnitude of the atrocity that was the use of the atomic bomb
The Allies have never been willing to apply to themselves the standards they enthusiastically applied to defeated nations. To this day one can only be engaged in war crimes or genocide if one is not an ally in good standing of the United States.
This book is a must read for anyone interested in learning about this neglected corner of American and global history.

Excellent!

Highly recommended. Well written and well performed. My only complaint is the sound quality. For some reason the sound often felt either too quiet and wispy or too loud and boomy in my earbuds. It’s usually not a problem so I’m guessing it’s an issue with the audio engineering. The story was so good I kept listening anyway and would repeat sections if needed.

Important and well-researched

A little long and repetitive. Less is often more. Could have been fifty percent shorter.

Revealing

This well-researched and well-written book does not merely recite the history of an oft-forgotten trial, but offers penetrating insight and analysis. The narrator is magnificent. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand how the aftermath of WW2 shapes our current world.