An Inconvenient History: Japan's Dark Shadow on Asia

If you loved the kdrama series, it's Okay to Not Be Okay, you will love these books.

Denial of the grim war time past of Japan is back to haunt it. The fact that Japan abused the Chinese and Korean women during the wars cannot be denied.

The first half of the book provided very good history of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan. The second half was a repetitive demand for reparations and open repentance by Japan for its evil and brutal treatment of its Asian neighbors(and to a lesser extent the Allied forces during WWII). Although Japanese actions then were severely egregious, the author uses page after page after page saying over and over what Japan should do to rectify as much as possible the situation and rejoin the East Asian and international communities on an equal basis: toooo many times!!

As other reviewers have said, this book is lengthy, wordy, and repetitive and reflects Korean resentment against Japan. However, this is a good source to learn, what exactly the well-known anti-Japanese feelings in East Asia entail and how they could be overcome. The author deserves respect as he speaks Japanese, knows world history, has done his research and makes every effort to objectively dig into Japanese psychology. Japanese military expansion after the Meiji restoration has indeed been most aggressive and no doubt degenerated into massive savagery. The book “Death by Government” by R. J. Rummel (1994) gives greater detail and shows the mass killing and barbarity were even worse than Park describes. But to view it in perspective, Rummel surveys barbarity in 20 regimes across the world and in the sequence of severity Japan’s actions appear way down the line. Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang was much worse and Mao Zedong of course won the first prize in mega-killings. Rummel’s conclusion is that, given the right circumstances, savagery will erupt in any country in the world no matter how civilized. That applies to Japan as well and, yes, Japan could have been more genuinely remorseful rather than dosing its apologies just right to achieve the desired effect, but they tried their best and buttressed it with massive economic support. The world has changed and Japan is no longer the only advanced land in the Pacific. As everybody has caught up and cultural equality in East Asia appears, past anger ought to fade as it has in Europe and mutual trust should come about.

Great product and service

You need to understand that this is a rant written strickly from a Korean viewpoint. While I grant that there was much to condemn about Japan's conduct in the war ( I believe, for example, in the Nanking affair), it is not so one-sided as this author would have you believe.

Girls were married off too young, just to avoid being forced into.brothels. Even the Dutch girls. Never forget!

Good history of Japan and neighbors. Way too biased against Japan- probably to be expected from Korean author! Also very repetitive.