Book Review: Dower, John. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

By: Brian Freeman

Dower, John. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Introduction

John Dower writer of War Without Mercy is a book that elaborates on the power and impact of racism in the Pacific theater of World War II. John Dower's War Without Mercy describes the ugly racial issues on both the Western Allies and Japanese sides of the conflict in the Pacific Theater as well as all of Asia before, during, and after World War II and the consequences of these issues on both militaries. Dower asserts that the war in the Pacific, on both the American and Japanese ends, was far more savage and violent than the European theater because racism in the American and Japanese culture left no room for mercy. Dower supports his thesis by effectively and exhaustively researching his topic. Dower creatively integrates and combines sources from almost every period of daily life and drawing on numerous unconventional sources like political cartoons, documentary propaganda films, manga animation, popular song lyrics and more. Dower, through his sources, convincingly demonstrates that both American and Japanese cultures were given false feelings of racial superiority. It is this racial superiority in the author's opinion that played a role in the development of atrocious behaviors seen in the Pacific of Theater.

John Dower who is a professor of Japanese Studies at the Michigan Institute of Technology and Pulitzer Prize winning author is considered an expert in the field of modern Japanese history and US-Japan relations. Dower’s book War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War has won a number of awards including the National Book Critics Award. In War without Mercy, Dower organizes the book into two main sections. The first section begins with the introduction to the materials and racial themes that will be used throughout the book and is by far the most interesting. The major theme is race and how it is a weapon of convenience for propagandists. Both sides for awhile claimed righteousness, but under close scrutiny both sides had serious social problems the other side could exploit. The United States during the 1940’s maintained a level of white supremacy evidenced in the way the Americans treated blacks and over a hundred thousand Asians who were placed in internment camps after Pearl Harbor. These facts assisted both the Germans and the Japanese in their respective propaganda campaigns. However, the Japanese had similar racist views portraying Europeans and Americans as decadent, impure, and downright demonic. They also viewed their Asian neighbors in much the same contemptuous way as did Western imperialists The Japanese were fanatically racist to other Asian race groups. The Japanese believed all other races to be inferior to the divinely descended Japanese race. This Japanese racism led to devastating exploitation of their Asian neighbors, who may have been racially related, but not divinely descended.

One of the most interesting finds that Dower discovers in his research is the influence of European, American, Japanese scientists who worked tirelessly to find significant advantages or disadvantages compared between races. The American research of races was the most influential of the studies which helped spark racist views. American scientist made the assumption due to Japanese head, ears, and eye development that the Japanese were an inferior race. Because of the scientific view the Japanese were perceived as a species apart referred to as apes. American media images would develop the Asian enemy as apes, primitives, or inhuman. However, it is interesting to find that the perception of the Japanese being an inferior race would soon disappear due to Japanese success in the battle. The Japanese ability to fight furiously gave them a perception of being superhuman. This gaining of American respect would be crucial in the peace process of the postwar.

The second section explores the transition from war to peace, and the ways in which images and symbols were transformed. The apes became pets while on the other side the western demons shared their secret knowledge. At the same time the negative racist images used during the war were transferred to the Soviet Union and Maoist China. Finally, Dower's book powerfully and persuasively describes how the racial stereotypes that fueled the Pacific conflict did not disappear but rather adapted to peacetime life. Victory confirmed the Allies' assumption of superiority but due the incredible fighting ability of the Japanese the Allies never gained racial superiority. This level of racial equality allowed for proper Japanese growth and peace postwar.

Criticism

The main criticism of War Without Mercy is that Dower overplays his hand and puts far too much emphasis on the role of racism portraying it as the primary cause of the war and of the evils that transpired during its execution. Ultimately, Dower must concede that race did not cause the war. One must consider the Japanese imperial rivalry over the Pacific, alliances in Europe, and Japanese aggression led to US combat in the Pacific. Unlike the war in Europe, however, the war between Japan and the USA was a ‘war without mercy’ because racial prejudice dehumanized both opponents.

Despite Dower’s main fault the War Without Mercy is an excellent book about the Pacific War in general or even about atrocities and war crimes themselves. The book focuses on racial aspects of the war between Japan and the United States. The book especially emphasizes the images each side used to describe the other and the war itself along with some study of how they evolved after the fighting stopped makes it a must read for anyone trying to understand the Pacific War of WWII.

Conclusion

Overall this book presents a side of the Second World War with which most Americans are unfamiliar and may find shocking. It does a valuable service in exposing many of the prejudices of the time and especially in showing how those prejudices were at least partly responsible for the string of debacles endured by U.S. and other allied forces in the war's opening stages. It also does a very good job of giving the reader a glimpse of the kind of thinking that was prevalent in Japanese society prior to and during the war. Dower broke new ground through his scholarly use of visual materials and other expressions of popular culture in reexamining Japanese and US-Asian history. “Despite such differences, however," notes Dower, "the end results of racial thinking on both sides were virtually identical being hierarchy, arrogance, viciousness, atrocity, and death." (180)