Customer Reviews

Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Perhaps "Soldiers of the Sun" would be light reading for a dedicated student of Japanese history, but for someone who finds Japanese culture interesting but has no serious educational or professional exposure to Japan, I found this book enlightening and engrossing. It traces the history of the Imperial Japanese Army from its inception during the Meiji Restoration, its slow decline in the early years of WWII and its inevitable collapse. I find the book to be quite balanced in its treatment of the IJA and her soldiers. It both explores the barbarity of the so-called "Rape of Nanking", the myth of the "Jungle Supermen" and the reality of the Japanese mindset which could drive a soldier to both extremes. Along the way you will also pick up some interesting background on Japanese social & political history of the time, and Japan's relations with foreign powers, particularly the British, German, Russians, and Americans. But make no mistake: its all about the Imperial Japanese Army. At heart it was a lively history book that moved the pace along to keep the narrative flowing while being highly informative at the same time. Highly recommended!

This book has now been altogether overtaken by a book that is superior in every possible respect, Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945 (Modern War Studies Series). Read my review of it and you will see why I say this. I cannot recommend the Harries' book at all now, not even as a supplement. Don't waste your time.

I'm retaining my original 2003 review, below, because it still has some useful pointers:

This British husband-wife history-writing team have produced a serviceable popular narrative history of the Japanese Army (which, as they do not note, only became "Imperial" after 1930). It's a field in which there is no great competition and their work has the merit of being fairly comprehensive and quite readable. Most of it comes from rehashing of well-known (and often not very strong) secondary sources, but they seem to have mined British War Office papers pretty thoroughly, resulting in some interesting tidbits. They mention having journeyed to Japan and consulted Japanese sources, but these don't seem to have played a very prominent role. There are a number of errors regarding well-known facts, and no significant analysis.

A brief, sound, readable summary of Japanese army history is provided by Alvin Coox in his article "The Japanese Army Experience," from Russell Weigley (ed.), _New Dimensions in Military History_ (Presidio, 1975). For a comprehensive work in English on the Japanese Army in World War II, see _Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War_, by Saburo Hayashi and Alvin Coox. (It is out of print and hard to find, but a text file is available on the Web.) Virtually anything written by Alvin Coox on the subject is well worth reading, and particularly his article "The Pacific War" in Vol. 6 of _The Cambridge History of Japan_. Coox's _Year of the Tiger_, (unfortunately also out of print) is valuable for the army in the China Incident, and his _Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939_ (available from Amazon) is a masterful study not only of this critical campaign but of the entire Japanese Army experience in Manchuria. For an understanding of the Japanese Army as an institution, see Leonard Humphreys, _The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920's_ (available from Amazon) as well as Shin'ichi Kitaoka, "The Army as a Bureaucracy: Japanese Militarism Revisited," _J. Mil. Hist._, 57/5: 67-86; James B. Crowley, "From Closed Door to Empire: The Formation of the Meji Miltary System," in Bernard S. Silberman and H. D. Harootunian (eds.), _Modern Japanese Leadership: Transition and Change_ (U. Arizona Press, 1966); and Roger F. Hackett, "The Military: A. Japan," in Robt. E. Ward & Dankwart A. Rustow (eds.) in _Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey_ (Princeton U. P., 1964).

Will O'Neil

This piece is an outstanding history of the Japanese Army, with a focus on the 20th century. Exceptionally well researched, this volume goes along way in explaining how and why the Japnanese army performed the way it did in the Second World War. A primary source for understanding 20th Century Japanese military affairs. SOLID GOLD BUY!

I first read the Harries couple's book about seven or eight years ago in High School and loved it. It really dispels the myths and attemps to reach an analytical if critical understanding of the Imperial Army in particular and Imperial Japan in general. I am re-reading it again and am even more impressed at how well it flows for a book of involved historical analysis on a wide-ranging and complex topic. While my own reference library on modern Japan and modern Japanese military history has grown to include over one hundred volumes as I got my BA and MA in modern Japanese History - this book is one of the first I still turn to for quick though comprehensive reference on some of the critical events on the topic. Great stuff. The British perspective does not detract either. Indeed the after-action reports on Japanese behavior, capabilities, and tactics from the CBI and other fronts outside of the US "island hopping" campaign, add an interesting outsider's take on the IJA. Get this one, you won't be sorry.

in reading this book, i am afraid of its thickness at first, but as time goes by, i find the authors' sentence making is very superb, they use simple words to make u understand and grasp the essence, unlike most other authors, who like to use long, long sentence and let u forget what's in front finally. another advantage is it describes the situation and both sides of the war impartially. all in all, i like it. and i want to know where it can be available.

This is a great book, especially for those wishing to understand the complexities in building a national army out of a feudal society during the Meiji restoration.

The Japanese use of "total intelligence" is also quite interesting, in that there are many similarities between Japanese tactics in the Pacific War and the Russo-Japanese and Nishin Wars.

I don't usually enjoy history books written by attorneys or journalists, but this is a big exception.

Would not be high on my list of recommended books about World War II. Although starts at much earlier date, its relevance to World War II is why I bought it. Fairly dull, especially the early history. Rated three stars; would have rated it four stars, except I cannot go along with characterization of it being "lively" by those who rated it higher.

This is a stimulating read for anyone with more than a casual interest of WWII in the Pacific.

A rich amount of well researched information is provided as the authors attempt to provide the reader with a clearer understanding of how and why the military was so entrenched into Japanese culture leading up to and throughout WWII.
In fact, stimulating bits of information are so plentiful this one book could be easily expanded to 4 or 5 volumes. However, it is this abundance of information 'bits' that frequently left me frustrated and questioning why the authors would so casually drop in an incredible detail and then quickly move on with no further explanation.

Nevertheless, the reader who has not studied this side of Japanese history will find new roads of thought in this wonderful book.

Before reading Soldiers of the Sun my knowledge of Japanese history was mostly limited to the events and personalities of WWII and the years immediately preceding. I decided to read it in order to get a deeper historical background for WWII Japan.

I was surprised to find out that Shinto, which includes deification of the emperor, was not an immemorial belief system in Japan, but a creation of the late 1800s in order to provide unification on the national level after the Meiji Restoration and decline of the Samurai. Japan then rapidly industrialized and developed their military outwardly along western lines, but inwardly with the Bushido warrior code, which came to be perverted for state ends, and Shinto as the animating ideals. What we see therefore is an isolated island culture jumping in less than a half century from medieval feudalism straight into late modernity, with no intervening age of reason or enlightenment. This is a theme that elucidates much about why Japan acted as they did in starting their expansion and how they treated vanquished foes.

The husband-wife co-authors do an admirable job of laying this down and chronicling all the developments and political machinations that led Imperial Japan down the road to disaster.

I very much enjoyed this history; it was well written, included many aspects of warfare, was clearly deeply and broadly researched, and kept its focus on the Japanese army, which has considerably less written on it than many other areas of the pacific war. Nonetheless, serious flaws exist. Firstly, as is apparently true in general in Pacific war literature, too little emphasis is given to China. This is better here than in Toland's inferior history Rising Sun, but still lacks remotely proportionate attention, either for resources expended or political and ideological focus. The authors also fall into a trap Toland suffers as well, which is too favorable a portrayal of the Japanese. While Nanking receives sufficient treatment (to the extent one can call anything short of some sort of eternal damnation sufficient for such atrocities) but Japanese army men are portrayed in far too good a light. Kempeitai are inadequately addressed, and far too many men are simply solid imperial servants. The fact is that the Japanese considerably outdid the Nazis in the China War, and histories such as this simply don't say enough. While this is not so revisionist as Letters from Iwo Jima, too much of the inhuman that has to be remembered is forgotten when the Japanese army leadership is brought to life in a book's pages.