Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War by Gi-Wook Shin and Daniel Sneider (review)

Divergent Memories, by Gi-Wook Shin and Daniel Sneider, is a broad overview of a very complex problem, maybe best encapsulated in a 2013 speech by Park Geun-hye, then president of South Korea. Asia, she explained, suffers from a paradox: a growing economic interdependence has emerged without the concomitant maturing political and security links (p. 308). One can see a similar contradiction manifested in the long list of official, carefully calibrated Japanese apologies for its role in World War II, which are often sadly followed by an equally long list of repudiations. Citing Caroline Rose, the authors remark that Japan's numerous admissions of guilt are never reinforced by any long-term action and are in fact undermined by the same bodies that supposedly try to atone (p. 295). The authors argue that the greatest impediment to reconciliation is divided memories, which remain in conflict. Shin and Sneider's book grew out of a long-term research project, Divided Memories and Reconciliation, at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. The volume is commendable on its own, but even more valuable if read in concert with Confronting Memories and History Textbooks, two sister publications that emerged from the research team.¹ Although there is a lot of overlap, including the utilization of some of the same examples and research, there is also enough stand-alone material so that the books reinforce each other and provide a deeper understanding of the subject. History Textbooks, for instance, takes up comparisons between Europe and East Asia—a topic not addressed in the book under review.

The focus of the book, as can be inferred from the title, is on investigating opinion leaders—though I was not always sure why the authors chose whom they did. With the exception of a few, many were emeritus or approaching that generation at the time the authors interviewed them. Very few women were included, which demonstrates a secondary problem of disequilibrium in academia and politics in East Asia. While we learn about their disparate opinions, which are reflected in regional disagreements, we are rarely taught how these leaders formed their views. Nevertheless, many of the book's chapters are insightful, and as the volume captures the general moods and trends within Japan, China, and Korea, it should be useful for students of various levels.

The book is divided into sections where the authors present the main issues in conflict within each of the countries in question, thus already drawing national boundaries around each of the subjects interviewed. No one interviewee seems to have conflicting loyalties, which is revealing. Li Datong was a dissenting voice on the Nanjing Massacre, but that was long ago in one Chinese newspaper. The choice of Li compelled me to wonder why the authors had not chosen some younger candidates to interview. Why not include the trilingual Japanese author, Katō Yoshikazu, who graduated from Peking University and then attended Harvard University? His work is of a more recent vintage, but he also is fiercely critical of all sides and not quite representative of any one national point of view. One might say the two authors chose the previous generation's opinion leaders. Granted, Asia is an aging society, but no interviewee reflects the grand changes that have taken place in social media or is an opinion shaper online. Moreover, Chinese media people and academicians were interviewed, but not so in the case of Korea. While Korean social activists and scholars were chosen, no one from TV or the print media was included, raising the question of whether the authors had difficulty finding willing participants from the Korean side.

Overall I found the authors' selections solid, but wanting at times. They chose people we already know, who are a safe bet. But would not more fiery choices, for example someone critical of China from the inside...