The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan by Akiko Hashimoto (review)

The Long Defeat explores how memories of national trauma persist across generations despite the general desire to forget the past and move on. Akiko Hashimoto uses Japan as a case study to build on Wolfgang Shivelbusch's work on vanquished nations, which, she argues, requires a post–World War II update. Hashimoto does this by examining the Japanese culture of defeat since the end of World War II through the present day, explaining how and why defeat has become an indelible part of national collective life. The culture of defeat has not subsided over time; it has endured, even intensified. This is partially due to an emerging culture of memory that has proliferated around the globe since the 1980s, but also because Japan—as the vanquished villain in the World War II narrative—has been trying to regenerate collective life in the aftermath of the war. In addition to domestic concerns (e.g., what does it mean to be Japanese? Why did we fight an unwinnable war?), Hashimoto argues that Japan's "history problem" has relevance beyond its national borders. Not only do national disputes about how the war should be remembered persist, but Japan is constantly facing the challenges of culpability for violent acts committed against neighboring China and South Korea in the Asia-Pacific War.

The book's strength rests in Hashimoto's comparative and historical method alongside a wide range of data to support her claims about postwar Japanese culture. She deftly weaves Japanese history throughout her analysis, while also incorporating fruitful comparisons with postwar Germany. Hashimoto moves beyond traditional approaches to studying memory by focusing on more than only "official memory," which includes formal speeches, statements, and policies made by politicians and other elites. Instead, she seeks to uncover the historical and moral understanding of the war in the everyday life of Japanese people, or "popular memory." In this way, Hashimoto is examining the roots of current memory debates in Japan from "below" as well as from "above."

Toward this end, she surveys the narratives of war found in families, popular culture, and schools to learn how people have come to terms with the difficult legacy of villainy, loss, guilt, and shame after the war. The data are broken down into three categories, each afforded a chapter. First, Hashimoto examines the personal testimonies of veterans and their adult children and grandchildren to uncover how difficult memories are narrated and passed on within families. Second, she demonstrates the emergence of three narratives regarding war memory—perpetrator, victim, and hero—that have emerged in recent decades by analyzing newspaper editorials published on August 15, the day Japan commemorates the end of World War II. That these competing narratives are able to coexist is a powerful illustration of the complex nature of memory. For example, a Japanese soldier may simultaneously be remembered as a perpetrator of war crimes, a victim of army maltreatment or "senseless orders," and a hero unwilling to kill a POW as ordered. Third, she conducts a discourse analysis of history and civics textbooks used in Japanese schools as well as popular comic books used for studying history. Hashimoto finds that schoolchildren are encouraged to develop negative moral sentiments associated with the war, which encourages pacifism—to "Just Say No" to war. This, she argues, also limits both their understanding of the complexity of the issues at hand and the linguistic tools they have to discuss them.

Hashimoto contends that in defeated societies like Japan, public discourse surrounding war is divided. She explains the modern tension between the need, on the one hand, to create meaning and a progressive narrative out of defeat and, on the other, for apology, regret, atonement, and reconciliation. Since the 1990s, Hashimoto argues, public discourse has been preoccupied with finding clarity about what happened in the war, gaining a deeper awareness and understanding of Japan's perpetrator role, and attempting to rehabilitate Japanese identity.

Hashimoto concludes that Japan has three...