Title: Unflinching Look At The Role of Racism in World War II
Product review: Dower later wrote another great book, "Embracing Defeat," about the US Occupation of Japan after WW II. This earlier work is a detailed and powerful examination of how racism on both sides had a major effect on the coming of war. Dower particularly points out institutional and legal racism in the United States, and in the League of Nations, that most Western histories of the Pacific War completely ignore. It is always easier to look at the other guy's sins and ignore our own. One way of doing this is by pretend that Pearl Harbor happened out of the blue, and that America and the European empires (that occupied almost all of Africa, and much of Asia at the time) did nothing to provoke an attack. Dower has the courage to look in the mirror, and asks other Americans to do the same. Otherwise, he says, the chances are good we will repeat past mistakes. The current tendency to demonize Moslems and Arabs is an obvious signal that he's right.
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