Judgement at Tokyo

From the author of the acclaimed The Blood Telegram and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, comes a landmark, magisterial history of the trial of Japan’s leaders as war criminals-the largely overlooked Asian counterpart to Nuremberg. In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the victorious powers turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For American leaders President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur, Britain’s Winston Churchill, China’s Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for their crimes. For the Allied powers, the trials were an opportunity both to render judgment on their vanquished foes and to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war. 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 no more than victors’ justice. For more than two years, the tensions and contradictions of the courtroom could be seen playing out across Asia as the trial unfolded in the crucial early years of the Cold War and the end of the European empires. They have influenced power politics across Asia and the Pacific ever since. Gary J. Bass' Judgement at Tokyo is the product of a decade of research, a magnificent, riveting story of wartime action, dramatic courtroom battles, and the epic formative years that set the stage for the postwar era in the Asia–Pacific.