So much has been written about the Showa Emperor that some readers may ask whether there is anything more to be said about a man who would hardly have left much lasting impression if he had been born in any other walk of life. But professor Ikuhiko Hata's book provides some interesting insights into the Emperor's personality, as well as into aspects of modern Japanese history.
Hata, professor emeritus of Nihon University, has delved deeply into the source material available in Japanese and English and has interviewed many of the participants in the events he describes. The results of his research impressed the late professor Marius Jansen, a doyen of Japanese historical studies in the United States, and we must be grateful to him and the publishers, Global Oriental, for bringing these fascinating studies to the attention of English-speaking students of modern Japanese history.
This is not a new biography of the Showa Emperor but a series of historical studies of events in which he was closely involved. The first essay deals with the infamous ni-ni-roku (26 February 1936) incident when the Emperor's adamant refusal, following the murder of some of his closest advisers, to countenance a "Showa Restoration" as demanded by the rebels, ensured that the mutiny was crushed. But as professor Hata puts it: "From the Emperor's perspective, the mountain had labored and produced a mouse. Hegemony had merely passed from the hands of the Imperial Way Faction into the hands of the Control Faction and its epigones and Japan would soon plunge headlong down the path to destruction in the China and Pacific Wars."