Client State

Reviews / Votes

Gavan McCormack's important new book on Japan as an American 'client state' sheds a penetrating light on the seismic changes to have affected the country in the early years of the twenty-first century, thereby exposing how the American embrace of Japan has become increasingly stifling. The wide-ranging scholarship and trenchant argument of Client State serves to confirm McCormack's position as Australia's leading critical thinker on Japan. -- Glenn D. Hook Much like the 1930s and 1940s, Japan today is rapidly rearming, antagonizing other nations of East Asia, and proclaiming officially that it was not responsible for war crimes committed in occupied countries during World War II. It also denies its governmental involvement in forcing Chinese, Korean, Philippine, and Dutch women to work as front-line prostitutes for its soldiers. It is pursuing these policies with the backing of its imperial mentor, the United States. Gavan McCormack's analysis of how this baneful situation has come about is masterful. -- Chalmers Johnson For those willing to ponder the complexity of postwar Japan, there is no better place to start than Client State. -- Andrew L. Oros * Pacific Affairs *