The Japanese empire : grand strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War /

Paine (US Naval War College) synthesizes much of her previous work and other English sources to analyze Japan's modernity and its military actions in the region from the perspective of strategy and national policy. Each chapter offers causes for, and implications of, major wars from the late 19th century to WW II. For example, in the case of the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05), the author asks why Russia lost the war when it should have won, offering many things Russia "could have" done to win. Although the prose is clearly written (presumably, this book is meant for course adoption) and its arguments succinct, there are, unfortunately, too many generalizations about "the Japanese" and, perhaps unbeknownst to the author, she employs an anachronistic analytical model--modernization theory--that has not been current since the 1960s. Paine equates modernization with westernization, whereby the Japanese do well when they look like the West during the late 19th and early 20th centuries but do poorly when they return to "tradition" (the non-West) during the fascist 1930s. Too many claims such as "Japan westernized, China did not, and there were consequences" are asserted but not proven. Summing Up: Not recommended. --Michael John Wert, Marquette University