Nov. 5, 2007
BOOK REVIEW: Historian Spector Tells of Continuation of WWII in Asia, After the Japan's 1945 Surrender in 'In the Ruins of Empire'
By David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic
As we've learned most recently with our Iraq adventure, it's far easier to get into a war than to get out of one. In his very readable sequel to "Eagle Against the Sun" -- a history of America's struggle with Japan in World War II -- Ronald H. Spector's "In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia" (Random House, 384 pages, $27.95) shows that defeating a foe's armed forces is often only the beginning of a long struggle.
We should have learned the lessons of World War II, Spector points out beginning on page 272 of his very important new history, but Presidents have a way of ignoring facts that don't agree with their conclusions.
Korea is a prime example, notes Spector, a professor of history and international relations at George Washington University who served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, who served both FDR and Truman, reportedly had difficulty finding the one-time Japanese colony on a map (Page 138). Despite a history of American missionary service in Korea, Spector writes that far more attention was paid to Indochina in the wake of the Japanese defeat.
President Roosevelt felt that colonies of former European powers -- Indochina with the French, the Dutch East Indies, later Indonesia, with the Dutch -- deserved independence, but only after a period of vaguely defined "trusteeship." This grated on the Koreans who longed for a return of independence after 35 years of brutal Japanese occupation. Not many people realize it today, but Spector points out that Korea was independent for centuries and Koreans considered themselves culturally superior to the Japanese.
Just as they did in "liberating" Manchuria, Japan's puppet kingdom in China, Soviet troops entering Korea engaged in an orgy of looting and raping. Korean women, the author notes, often disguised themselves as men to escape the horror. The northern part of Korea, adjacent to Manchuria, was the country's industrial powerhouse under the Japanese, and the Soviets quickly stripped factories of machinery and goods, as they did in Manchuria and in eastern Germany.
Relying on recently available firsthand accounts from Japanese, Chinese, British and American sources and declassified U.S. intelligence records, Spector shows what a truly messy situation prevailed after the Japanese surrender. In several cases, Japanese troops were used by Nationalist China to fight the communists. It was almost as if the SS had been used by the Allies in Europe to fight insurgencies there.
Before they surrendered, the Japanese granted independence to Indonesia, a tactic that the Dutch rejected and which resulted in four more years of conflict and atrocities before the Dutch departed in 1949. Spector devotes several chapters to Indonesia, providing a much needed dose of history to a populace -- most Americans -- that really doesn't know much about history.
Speaking of the SS, in Indochina, many members of the French Foreign Legion landing in the French possession late in 1945 had fought with Rommel's Afrika Corps in the north Aftrican desert, Spector writes. They even spent their evenings in bars in Hanoi and Saigon singing German drinking songs!
Spector writes so well that I'm going to follow my example after recently reviewing two books by Robert D. Kaplan: I'm going to go back and read his "Eagle Against the Sun." If you don't know much about history, and I'm guessing you don't -- "In the Ruins of Empire" will be an education.
Publisher's web site: www.atrandom.com
BOOK REVIEW: Historian Spector Tells of Continuation of WWII in Asia, After the Japan's 1945 Surrender in 'In the Ruins of Empire'
By David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic
As we've learned most recently with our Iraq adventure, it's far easier to get into a war than to get out of one. In his very readable sequel to "Eagle Against the Sun" -- a history of America's struggle with Japan in World War II -- Ronald H. Spector's "In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia" (Random House, 384 pages, $27.95) shows that defeating a foe's armed forces is often only the beginning of a long struggle.
We should have learned the lessons of World War II, Spector points out beginning on page 272 of his very important new history, but Presidents have a way of ignoring facts that don't agree with their conclusions.
Korea is a prime example, notes Spector, a professor of history and international relations at George Washington University who served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, who served both FDR and Truman, reportedly had difficulty finding the one-time Japanese colony on a map (Page 138). Despite a history of American missionary service in Korea, Spector writes that far more attention was paid to Indochina in the wake of the Japanese defeat.
President Roosevelt felt that colonies of former European powers -- Indochina with the French, the Dutch East Indies, later Indonesia, with the Dutch -- deserved independence, but only after a period of vaguely defined "trusteeship." This grated on the Koreans who longed for a return of independence after 35 years of brutal Japanese occupation. Not many people realize it today, but Spector points out that Korea was independent for centuries and Koreans considered themselves culturally superior to the Japanese.
Just as they did in "liberating" Manchuria, Japan's puppet kingdom in China, Soviet troops entering Korea engaged in an orgy of looting and raping. Korean women, the author notes, often disguised themselves as men to escape the horror. The northern part of Korea, adjacent to Manchuria, was the country's industrial powerhouse under the Japanese, and the Soviets quickly stripped factories of machinery and goods, as they did in Manchuria and in eastern Germany.
Relying on recently available firsthand accounts from Japanese, Chinese, British and American sources and declassified U.S. intelligence records, Spector shows what a truly messy situation prevailed after the Japanese surrender. In several cases, Japanese troops were used by Nationalist China to fight the communists. It was almost as if the SS had been used by the Allies in Europe to fight insurgencies there.
Before they surrendered, the Japanese granted independence to Indonesia, a tactic that the Dutch rejected and which resulted in four more years of conflict and atrocities before the Dutch departed in 1949. Spector devotes several chapters to Indonesia, providing a much needed dose of history to a populace -- most Americans -- that really doesn't know much about history.
Speaking of the SS, in Indochina, many members of the French Foreign Legion landing in the French possession late in 1945 had fought with Rommel's Afrika Corps in the north Aftrican desert, Spector writes. They even spent their evenings in bars in Hanoi and Saigon singing German drinking songs!
Spector writes so well that I'm going to follow my example after recently reviewing two books by Robert D. Kaplan: I'm going to go back and read his "Eagle Against the Sun." If you don't know much about history, and I'm guessing you don't -- "In the Ruins of Empire" will be an education.
Publisher's web site: www.atrandom.com
