Basing his work on newly released documents and Japanese sources, Bix strongly suggests in this 2000 publication that Hirohito took a much more active role in planning and pursuing the Pacific War than was hitherto supposed, but that his desire to hold onto the throne dovetailed with the plans of MacArthur, whose team worked hard to avoid having the emperor tried for war crimes. Currently a professor at Hitotsubashi University's Graduate School of Social Sciences, the author also declares that the US firebombing of Japanese cities was immoral, and intimates that the atomic bombs were unnecessary for ending the war.
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The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus