The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan - Hardcover

Buruma, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224031384 ISBN 13: 9780224031387

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1994

Synopsis

Between the early 1930s and 1945, Germany and Japan went on the most destructive rampage the world has ever seen. The atrocities committed by their armies and police forces became a byword for human cruelty. Ian Buruma's new book is about the way the Germans and Japanese cope with this terrible past. It is about the painful realities of living with guilt, and of denying it. He meets people who will amaze the reader by the ingenuity of their evasion of responsibility. He goes to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Hiroshima to see how history at its worst is remembered. He visits grotesque monuments, such as the Japanese shrine to the Kamikaze pilots.

About this title

Synopsis:

Between the early 1930s and 1945, Germany and Japan both embarked on extremely destructive colonial adventures. This book looks at the ways in which the Germans and the Japanese have come to terms with the past and investigates the painful realities of living with guilt - and of denying it. Ian Buruma encounters people whose honesty in confronting the past is brave, and others who astonish by the ingenuity of their evasion of responsibility. In Auschwitz, Berlin, Hiroshima and Tokyo he explores the contradictory attitudes of scholars, politicians and survivors, and visits some grotesque monuments, such as the Japanese Shinto museum commemorating the kamikaze pilots. Throughout the book, Ian Buruma's concern is to show how obsession with the past, especially distorted versions of it, is a threat to democracy today in two of the world's most powerful countries.

About the Author:

Ian Buruma was educated in Holland and Japan, and spent many years in Asia. He has become one of the most distinguished writers of his generation on the Far East, in books such as God's Dust (Vintage) and A Japanese Mirror and in his essays for The New York Review of Books. He has also written a novel, Playing the Game, a ficitonal biography of K. S. Ranjitsinhji, the Indian Prince who played cricket for the MCC in Edwardian Britain.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0224031384
• ISBN 13: 9780224031387
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336