American Shogun

MacArthur, Hirohito And The American Affair With Japan

From the mid-nineteenth century on, America and Japan were caught in an extraordinary political, military and economic duel. This clash was characterised by a cultural incompatibility that was to haunt the negotiations of their two leaders, Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthur. Hirohito was a remarkable man. Diffident, uncharismatic and apparently obtuse, he survived as god-ruler of Japan for six decades through internal strife, war, defeat, occupation and economic victory. But Hirohito met his equal in MacArthur. Brash and domineering, MacArthur merited the honorary Japanese epithet shogun or ‘army leader’ for his almost single-handed six year rule over Japan. In this absorbing dual biography Robert Harvey traces their tense and complex relationship. His broad scope encompasses two great nations in war and peace—a momentous period of history which provides illuminating insight into American actions across the world today. Settles the debate on General MacArthur: meglomaniac or genius. Only in its post-WW2 dealings with Japan and elsewhere did America first become a ‘colonising’ superpower. Robert Harvey unearths the antecedents for America’s forceful global role today. Gripping psychological insights into Hirohito and MacArthur, two extraordinary characters beset by political tussles and cultural incompatibility.