Summary of John W. Dower's War Without Mercy

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 World War Two meant many things to many people. It meant death for many, technological innovation, bureaucratic expansion, and an extraordinary mobilization of human resources and ideological fervor for governments.

#2 Racism played a significant role in World War Two, and it was not limited to the Nazis. The Western Allies, particularly the United States and United Kingdom, had many racist policies in place, and they supported these policies even while condemning Nazi racism.

#3 The racism that existed in America during World War Two was also present abroad, especially in Asia, where the Allied struggle against Japan exposed the racist underpinnings of the European and American colonial structure.

#4 The Japanese played on these sentiments, and the favorable response of many Asians to the initial Japanese victories against the Americans, British, and Dutch intensified Western presentiments of an all-out race war in Asia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822511248

IRB Media

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Insights on John W. Dower's War Without Mercy

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

World War Two meant many things to many people. It meant death for many, technological innovation, bureaucratic expansion, and an extraordinary mobilization of human resources and ideological fervor for governments.

#2

Racism played a significant role in World War Two, and it was not limited to the Nazis. The Western Allies, particularly the United States and United Kingdom, had many racist policies in place, and they supported these policies even while condemning Nazi racism.

#3

The racism that existed in America during World War Two was also present abroad, especially in Asia, where the Allied struggle against Japan exposed the racist underpinnings of the European and American colonial structure.

#4

The Japanese played on these sentiments, and the favorable response of many Asians to the initial Japanese victories against the Americans, British, and Dutch intensified Western presentiments of an all-out race war in Asia.

#5

The media in the West often portrayed the war in Asia as a racial war, and the Japanese as a threat to the world’s racial purity. In reality, Pan-Asian unity was a myth, and the Japanese actually earned more hatred than support.

#6

The Japanese had a racist component to their ideology, as they believed that the Japanese were the superior race, and the Co-Prosperity Sphere was meant to maintain that superiority.

#7

The Japanese used a lot of racist code words and imagery to describe their enemies, and these were often excessively graphic and contemptuous. The Western Allies, on the other hand, used images of apes and vermin to convey the subhuman nature of the Japanese.

#8

The Japanese were also influenced by Western race stereotypes, which had been reinforced by nineteenth-century Western science. The Japanese found their place in the Confucian classics they had inherited from China, and their notions of purity in the rituals of the indigenous Shinto religion.

#9

The two sides had a lot in common, including race hate and martial fury, but they also had things that separated them, such as battlefield courage and dreams of peace.

#10

The most basic attitudes toward life and death among the Japanese and Westerners that participated in the war were not that different. Many Japanese died instead of surrendering because they had little choice in the matter, and the Allies never took prisoners.

#11

The patterns of a race war are like a palimpsest that reveals unexpected and hitherto obscured layers of experience. What passes for empirical observation is revealed to be permeated with myth, prejudice, and wishful thinking.

#12

The war years themselves changed over into an era of peace between Japan and the Allied powers, and the racial rhetoric of the early 1940s was surprisingly adaptable. The archetypical demon of Japanese folklore had always had two faces, being not only a destructive presence but also a potentially protective and tutelary being.

#13

The films produced by Capra and his team were classic wartime propaganda. They were designed to combat the isolationist sentiments that lingered in the United States, and with this in mind, the seven core films were given the collective title Why We Fight.

#14

The American people needed to