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A Reckoning
Philippine Trials of Japanese War Criminals
Sharon W. Chamberlain
New Perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies
Series Editors: Alfred W. McCoy, Ian G. Baird, Katherine A. Bowie, and Anne Ruth Hansen
Associate Editors: Warwick H. Anderson, Ian Coxhead, Michael Cullinane, Paul D. Hutchcroft, and Kris Olds
“A riveting historical narrative. Making extensive use of primary sources, it offers a wealth of information and stories of real people through whose eyes Chamberlain unravels the complex postwar matrix of colonization and decolonization, hatred and forgiveness, and hard political and economic calculations.”
—Franziska Seraphim, author of War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005
After World War II, thousands of Japanese throughout Asia were put on trial for war crimes. Examination of postwar trials is now a thriving area of research, but Sharon W. Chamberlain is the first to offer an authoritative assessment of the legal proceedings convened in the Philippines. These were trials conducted by Asians, not Western powers, and centered on the abuses suffered by local inhabitants rather than by prisoners of war. Her impressively researched work reveals the challenges faced by the Philippines, as a newly independent nation, in navigating issues of justice amid domestic and international pressures.
Chamberlain highlights the differing views of Filipinos and Japanese about the trials. The Philippine government aimed to show its commitment to impartial proceedings with just outcomes. In Japan, it appeared that defendants were selected arbitrarily, judges and prosecutors were biased, and lower-ranking soldiers were punished for crimes ordered by their superior officers. She analyzes the broader implications of this divergence as bilateral relations between the two nations evolved and contends that these competing narratives were reimagined in a way that, paradoxically, aided a path toward postwar reconciliation.
Sharon W. Chamberlain is an independent historian. She lives in Washington, DC.
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Larger images
February 2019
LC: 2018018522 KZ
272 pp. 6 x 9
9 b/w illus., 1 map
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