This is a very important book, the best study in English of how Japanese people conducted themselves during the war. As a child living in Japan at that time, I experienced much of what Yamashita writes about. His empirical data as well as broad observations are impeccable. The book will make a major contribution not only to the study of the Second World War but also to twentieth-century world history.
Akira Iriye, author of Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War and Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945 Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940-1945 should be read by anyone who wishes to reflect on the state of militarized modernity and meanings of total war.
Lisa Yoneyama, author of Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory Sam Yamashita seamlessly weaves diverse diarists' accounts, from school children to kamikaze pilots, into simply the best account in English of everyday life on wartime Japan's home front.
Edward Drea, author of Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945 A remarkable companion to his recent translations of Japanese wartime diaries, Sam Yamashita gives us a thoughtful and highly readable account of everyday life during the Asia-Pacific War. A wonderful addition to the social history of twentieth century Japan.
Louise Young, author of Beyond the Metropolis: Second Cities and Modern Life in Interwar Japan This is a vivid story of the Japanese people on the home front
of concerted efforts, hard work, and endurance to win the war and eventual preparation for possible American invasion of the homeland. Especially heartbreaking is the tale of young children (third- through sixth-grade students) in the big cities, who were forced to evacuate in group to the countryside against their indulging parents. By fully exploring an unexploited aspect, mainly through the examination of diaries, Yamashita makes a significant contribution to the history of the Pacific War.
Yasuhide Kawashima, author of The Tokyo Rose Case: Treason on Trial The author of this study has done a great service to historians of all types by scrutinizing the relationship between society and self in Japan during World War II.
The Historian Offers many insights into the wartime experiences of Japanese housewives and children, city dwellers and farmers, civilians and servicemen.
Journal of Japanese Studies Yamashita depicts the Japanese people as both active participants in the prosecution of the war and subjects struggling to adapt to increasingly arduous material and psychological circumstances, and insistent state demands for conformity and self-sacrifice. The diaries reveal both the mundane and the chilling effects of these processes on individuals and families.
Journal of Military History A nuanced, detailed, and balanced account presenting a much more complex account of wartime home front Japan than most readers might be familiar with in the general absence, heretofore, of original source materials. Highly recommended.
Choice