Michael Schaller

Securing the Great Crescent: Occupied Japan and the Origins of Containment in Southeast Asia

The links between policy toward Occupied Japan and the origins of containment in Southeast Asia are both intriguing and elusive. While a few historians suggest that these policies sprang from similar roots, most studies contrast the constructive American record in Japan to the military and ideological crusades pursued in China, Korea, and Indochina. However, planners and policy makers in the late 1940s did not compartmentalize Japan and Southeast Asia, but saw them as linked sectors on a great crescent that stretched in an arc from the Kurile Islands to the borders of Iran and Afghanistan. Those most concerned with Japan in the State and Defense

Hands across the sea? : U.S.-Japan relations, 1961-1981

In 1961, the U.S. economy and military were practically unassailable in the eyes of the world. Within twenty years however, America had faced defeat in Vietnam its economy had been shaken, and Japan had assumed the title of the worlds economic superpower. The U.S. and Japan had reversed roles as surplus and debtor nations. In Hands across the Sea? Timothy Maga examines this role reversal and traces the volatile relationship between these two powerful allies. Magas research took him through presidential archives and interviews with policy-makers in both the U.S. and Japan, where he found a relationship forever troubled by cultural misunderstanding, Americas Cold War obsession, Japanese pride, and strangely conflicting goals. But, as Maga discovered, for different reasons both nations needed each other during this critical time. For better or for worse, they persisted.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur. By Mark Perry. (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2014. Pp. xviii, 380.

the decades since Kennedy’s death—Paupp shows convincingly that RFK’s ideas (like those of Martin Luther King Jr.) pointed the way forward with an emphasis on empowering impoverished communities themselves. Paupp fits RFK’s empathetic outlook on poverty and what needed to be done to alleviate it in the context of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Second Bill of Rights” of January 1944. He also shows that an expanded view of human rights—the right to a “useful and remunerative job,” food and clothing, health care, a “decent home,” “adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, accident, and unemployment,” as well as the “right to a good education”—informed Kennedy’s core ideas about poverty and social injustice. Paupp also illustrates that in the years since RFK’s death the “bipartisan” embrace of neoliberal globalization policies has been wholly inconsistent with the progressive vision RFK enunciated and upon which he acted. By the mid-1960s, Paupp argues, Kennedy found himself in the center of the civil rights struggles of the United States,

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★ 1175 While there was a tendency to protect homosexual servicemen from official disciplining, those unlucky enough to face court martial underwent a humiliating process. Utilized in an effort to not only punish the accused but also to deter others from following in their footsteps, such court martials featured denigrating language intended to denormalize the same-sex experience. Those found guilty were subsequently sent to jail, and more often than not placed under suicide watch—a clear testament to the stigmatization of being labeled a homosexual during this period. Jackson’s is an important contribution, not only for those interested in wartime Canada and the social history of World War II, but also those with an eye for contemporary public policy debates. Those campaigning against the presence of homosexuals within the military continue to argue that their presence lowers the troops’ morale. According to this case study, homosexuality tended to be accepted within the ranks; rather, it was when the hierarchy attempted to root out homosexuals that esprit de corps was negatively affected. A well-researched and thought provoking book, One of the Boys deserves a wide readership.

American Shogun: General MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito, and the Drama of Modern Japan, and: America's Japan: The First Year, 1945-46 (review)

The Origins of a Military Career The Formation of a Personality Siberia: A Personality Emerges Paths to Promotion Preparation for Wartime Command Buna, the Pyrrhic Victory Struggles from the Sidelines Hollandia and Biak Competition in the Philippines Victory and Disappointment in the Southern Philippines The Military Occupation of Japan Turmoil in the Retirement Years Conclusions Bibliography

In Caesar's Shadow: The Life of General Robert Eichelberger.

During the past decade the extraordinary growth of the East and South east Asian economies, along with the crumbling of Cold War certain ties, has refocused American attention on the Asia-Pacific region. Ever higher numbers of Asian immigrants, tourists, investors, consumer products, not to mention sushi bars and Thai restaurants, have trans formed the average Americans perception of what is now popu larly called the Pacific Rim more rapidly than anyone could have predicted. After all, barely twenty-five years ago the United States remained committed to the containment of Red China and the de