The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (Harvard East Asian Monographs)
The significance of this book is not whether the Tokyo trials established the guilt of Japanese wartime political leaders for initiating an aggressive war, and their culpability for the horrific war crimes committed by Japanese military personnel against innocent civilians and Allied military personnel. While these are important, the real import ofThe Tokyo War Crimes Trialsis its systematic, yet nuanced analysis of the prevalent Japanese view--one that persists to this day--that the Tokyo tribunals were illegitimate because the legal process was corrupted for ideological and political reasons...This excellent book belongs on the bookshelf of every historian interested in legal history generally and war crimes in particular. (Fred L. BorchJournal of Military History2009-01-01)