Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media

Employs hundreds of images and written records from Japanese periodicals during World War II to trace the nation's transformation from a colorful, cosmopolitan empire in 1937 to a bleak "total war" society facing imminent destruction in 1945. This volume offers a representation of the official Japanese narrative of the war in contemporary terms.

Zusammenfassung
This unique window on history employs hundreds of images and written records from Japanese periodicals during World War II to trace the nation's transformation from a colorful, cosmopolitan empire in 1937 to a bleak "total war" society facing imminent destruction in 1945. The author draws upon his extensive collection of Japanese wartime publications to reconstruct the government-controlled media's narrative of the war's goals and progress - thus providing a close-up look at how the war was shown to Japanese on the home front. Many of these visual and written sources are rare in Japan and were previously unavailable in the West. Strikingly, the narrative remains consistent and convincing from victory to retreat, and even as defeat looms large. Earhart's nuanced reading of Japan's wartime media depicts a nation waging war against the world and a government terrorizing its own people. At once informed, scholarly, and readily accessible, this lavishly illustrated volume offers an accurate representation of the official Japanese narrative of the war in contemporary terms. The images are fresh and compelling, revealing a forgotten world by turns familiar and alien, beautiful and stark, poignant and terrifying.

Inhalt

Introduction: A Picture Worth a Thousand Arguments 1. Emperor ShOwa 2. The Great Japanese Empire 3. Men of the Imperial Forces4. A People United in Serving the Nation 5. Warrior Wives 6. Junior Citizens 7. Now the Enemy Is America and Britain! 8. The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere 9. Uchiteshi Yamamu: Keep Up the Fight! 10. Faces of the Enemy 11. Dying Honorably, from Attu to Iwo Jima 12. The Kamikazefication of the Home Front. Conclusion: Endgame Appendix 1: Annotated Bibliography of Japanese Wartime News Journals Appendix 2: Glossary