Why the Japanese Lost

This sweeping historical study examines the military culture and fighting style of Imperial Japan from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of WWII.

 


In Why the Japanese Lost, military historian Bryan Perrett presents an in-depth portrait of a nation that believed itself to be invincible, even when its strength was being systematically destroyed by the greatest industrial power in the world. Perrett analyzes the Japanese Army from the middle of the nineteenth century through the closing months of the Second World War, highlighting its various successes as well as the flaws that led to its greatest failures.


 


Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, Japan was content to remain in medieval isolation. But by the twentieth century, the nation was armed and determined to carve out a new identity characterized by a dominating spirit. Dejected by the Great Depression of the early 1930s, the nation had grown from moderate to militant.


 


Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Japanese Army was emboldened. Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies were all overrun with deceptive ease, leading the Army to become dangerously overconfident. Through each episode of note in the history of the Japanese military, Perrett analyses and endeavors to explain the root causes and pivotal decisions that led to defeat.</