
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Was Hirohito really as passive as history has painted him? Emperor Hirohito stood at the head of Japan’s war machine, yet after 1945, both the Japanese and the Americans painted him as a powerless observer.
But is passivity just as bad as collusion? In this episode, Dan is joined by Christopher Harding, lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh and strategy expert Professor Phillips O'Brien at the University of St Andrews to examine Japan's catastrophic wartime strategy, its army's brutality and debate how much of the responsibility for that lies with Hirohito.
Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of suicide warfare.
If you would like to subscribe to Chris' substack, then it can be found at www.IlluminAsia.org.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore
Phillips' book that inspired this series is called 'The Strategists' and is available now.
Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.
We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.
You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected].
4.7
39923,992 ratings
Was Hirohito really as passive as history has painted him? Emperor Hirohito stood at the head of Japan’s war machine, yet after 1945, both the Japanese and the Americans painted him as a powerless observer.
But is passivity just as bad as collusion? In this episode, Dan is joined by Christopher Harding, lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh and strategy expert Professor Phillips O'Brien at the University of St Andrews to examine Japan's catastrophic wartime strategy, its army's brutality and debate how much of the responsibility for that lies with Hirohito.
Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of suicide warfare.
If you would like to subscribe to Chris' substack, then it can be found at www.IlluminAsia.org.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore
Phillips' book that inspired this series is called 'The Strategists' and is available now.
Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.
We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.
You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected].
3,170 Listeners
1,306 Listeners
5,177 Listeners
116 Listeners
3,094 Listeners
527 Listeners
12,955 Listeners
1,752 Listeners
1,960 Listeners
2,652 Listeners
180 Listeners
1,210 Listeners
258 Listeners
1,408 Listeners
2,116 Listeners
907 Listeners
859 Listeners