World War II Database

Full Title: Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq

Philosopher George Santayana famously said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", and this was perhaps among one of the reasons why many of you visit website such as WW2DB. Author John W. Dower's Cultures of War compared and contrasted the US-Japan in WW2 with the most recent invasion and occupation of Iraq. While the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor gave Franklin Roosevelt the excuse to join the British against Germany, the 9-11 attacks gave George Bush the excuse to attack Iraq. When justifying each of the wars, Japanese leadership of WW2 and US leadership of the Iraq War both exploited existing racist sentiments. The phrase "Ground Zero", historically used for atomic bomb detonation sites, was applied to the World Trade Center site to link public perception with weapons of mass destruction. Many of the experiences gained in the occupation of Japan were also applied to the occupation of Iraq. When providing a Monday morning quarterback analysis on whether the lessons learned in the 1940s were applied effectively, the author generally responded in the negative, as the US leadership during the Iraq War cherry-picked the lessons they wished to apply, resulting in ineffective policies which led to continued bloodshed in the region. As a WW2 history enthusiast, I greatly enjoyed the author's study of Japanese troops being used in post-WW2 local conflicts in Vietnam, China, and Indonesia; the Yamashita Standard; and the illegal aspects of some of Douglas MacArthur's policies during the occupation. I would have to admit that I had not given ample thought to some of those topics prior to this book.

I had reviewed this title in its audio book format. Kevin Foley did a great job with the narration.

Since Cultures of War dealt with such a recent topic, the book and some of the author's views necessarily would stir some controversy. Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with his various opinions, his in-depth research and thoughtful analysis provided a very interesting perspective linking two periods six decades apart. Speaking strictly on the WW2-related topics of this book, I had learned a lot about the occupation of Japan in this book, among other things; the book would earn a recommendation from me judging from that aspect alone.