Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

John Dower (b. 1938) is an award-winning American historian. The author specializes in modern Japanese history, the relationship between the United States and Japan, as well as the subject of warfare. He often relies on visual materials and popular culture when writing on social history.

He received his doctorate in History (1972) from Harvard University and used his dissertation on Japan’s occupation-era Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida to write Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954. His other monographs include War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World, and Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq.

This book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (1999, 2000), received a number of prestigious prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize and the US National Book Award. Embracing Defeat sources hundreds of documents to create a complex narrative of Japan’s postwar recovery under American occupation by focusing on the lives of ordinary people.

The author has taught at a number of academic institutions, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California at San Diego. He is a Professor of History, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).