Emperors of the Rising Sun: Three Biographies

by Stephen S. Large

The history of modern Japan cannot be conceived without reference to its emperors. Japan became a modern nation during the reign of Emperor Meiji from 1868 to 1912, experienced an interlude for a good part of the reign of Emperor Taisho (1912-26), and then suffered defeat in war and rose from its ashes during the reign of Emperor Showa (Hirohito) from 1926 to 1989. What role did the three emperors play in forming the policies of government and influencing the course the country would take? How did their personalities affect this role? What kind of men, in fact, were they? It is such questions as these that the author, Stephen S. Large, winner of the Ohira Prize for his book on Emperor Hirohito, attempts to answer. From Emperors of the Rising Three Biographies the reader will not only gain an insight into the lives and characters of the three emperors but will also acquire an understanding of the inner workings of Japanese politics and a knowledge of the behind-the-scenes stories that determined the kind of nation that Japan would become. In short, Emperors of the Rising Sun is enjoyable as well as insightful, a delight for anyone interested in the history of Japan or the roles that emperors have played in modern times.

231 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[J.D. Steens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most know about Pearl Harbor, the war with Japan, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but know little about the history leading up to this mid-20th century catastrophe. If one wants a nutshell history about how we got to that point, this is the book to read. It tells us the story of modern Japan through the fairly short biographies of the reigns of three Japanese Emperors - Meiji (1868-1912), his son Taisho (1912-26), and his son Hirohito (1926-89).

The main question is this: What role are the Emperors to play in the governance of modern-day Japan? Until the end of WWII, the answer to that question was left ambiguous. The Emperor’s function was to represent the Japanese people through a divine-like presence; his job was to transcend the particular, and thus, to leave the tasks of day-to-day governance to political leaders. Yet, his job also was to sanctify what the political leaders put forward, to in effect bless what was to be done. And here was where the ambiguity manifested itself as the Emperor, particularly Meiji (Taisho was largely irrelevant as an Emperor), had a say in what was to be done on the governance side of Japanese society.

The secondary theme in this book was the increasingly powerful undercurrent of Japanese militarization that either fought for control of Japan’s governance structures or sought its independence from government directives. In time, this resulted in conflicts with Russia, China, Korea and southern Asia and, ultimately, the attack on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.* And this is where Hirohito struggled. Whatever misgivings he might have had - and it’s not clear if he had any fundamental concerns - he went along with the militarization of Japan and thus, given his role as a constitutional monarch, endorsed it.

At the end of the war, there was this debate about punishing Hirohito as a war criminal. In the end, the US under General MacArthur decided for utilitarian reasons alone to retain Hirohito as Emperor. In transforming Japan to a post-war democratic governance structure, and one that would forswear war and have no standing army, the endorsement of the Emperor was necessary. But in post-war Japan the Emperor was stripped of his divine entity status and restricted the Emperor’s role strictly to ceremonial, figurehead functions. Hirohito made the adjustment work for the rest of his reign, though he also comes off as a guilt-ridden figure who, in retrospect, failed to measure up to what needed to be done.

*In the U.S. the story line has been that Japan attacked the U.S. An alternative viewpoint was that this was because the U.S. had imposed trading barriers on Japan, but as Stephen Large notes in this book, that was in response to Japan’s aggressive push into SE Asia.