War Without Mercy: Race & Power In the Pacific War (1986) By John W. Dower
 
In War Without Mercy, Dower – who is an emeritus professor at MIT – casts light on the racist foundation of the Second World War. In describing World War II as a race war, Dower provides details as widely varying as "songs, slogans, propaganda reports, secret documents, Hollywood movies, the mass media and quotes from soldiers, leader and politicians".
 
Dower contrasts western racism towards Japanese people with attitudes towards Germans/Nazis – in the US, Germans overall were differentiated from Nazis. That differentiation was not complete or perfect, but even so it was different from the attitudes towards the entire Japanese people. Immediately after Pearl Harbor (itself part of the reason for the intensity of anti-Japanese sentiment), the U.S. government incarcerated Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, despite the lack of any evidence of any organized activity on the part of Japan within the U.S. Japanese community. Meanwhile the German American Bund had openly supported Hitler right up to the declaration of war.
 
With concrete examples and excruciating detail, Dower illuminates the painful depths of racism, and shows how destructive its real world impacts can be. In the final section, Dower explains how a kind of 'normalcy' of viewpoints was re-established; and how much fragility still exists within our current relations. "They [racist stereotypes] remain latent, capable of being revived by both sides in times of crisis and tension".
 
Soft Cover
399 pages
In Good Condition