Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia

This magisterial history delves into the two-year trial of Japan’s military leaders, held before a panel of judges from China, India, the Philippines, Australia, Europe, and Americas, a counterpart to the trial at Nuremberg. The Japan trial was as much about communist revolutions and anticolonialism as it was about assigning responsibility for Pearl Harbor, Bass (politics and international affairs, Princeton Univ., The Blood Telegram) argues, and it provided graphic accounts of the Japanese military’s brutality in China, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. Bass provides a lengthy outline of not only the evidence presented in the trial against Japan’s leaders but also the conflicts between the judges, best reflected in Radhabinod Pal’s dissenting opinion. This book moves beyond the traditional military history to compare Japan’s aggression against the communist and anticolonial movements within Asia. The author is ambitious in his attempt to provide a geopolitical frame to the trials, but the number of characters and details may overwhelm some readers.