[LMB] About Gregor- OT

[Rebecca Bauer]

I read about a third of George Feifer's "Breaking Open Japan" before we moved and I packed the book away ... it's still packed.  Feifer traces the  evolution of Japanese attitudes from Commodore Perry's forced opening of the country to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Americans never came to terms with the Japanese's feeling of shame and impotence that resulted from Perry's actions, but those attitudes came back with a vengence in 1941.  Sadly, even Japs who understood the folly of attacking "a sleeping giant and filling him with a fearsome resolve" brimmed with pride at the successful attack.  

Feifer is far too careful an historian to claim that Perry's actions "caused Pearl Harbor".  But he faults Perry- and the United States- for lack of cultural understanding.  Perry was proud that he "never fired a shot in anger" and did not kill any Japs when the Black Ships arrived.  But fire shots he did, over the heads of the seething natives, setting into motion a complex set of dynamics that contributed to the rise of Japanese militarism.  Japanese felt humiliated, and bestirred themselves into a frenzy of economic activity that produced an  industrialization that was unprecedented in terms of its frenetic speed.  That lead to victory in the Russo-Japanaese war early in the century, only whetting their militaristic designs.

It also is interesting to note that the Russians had planned a naval venture to open Japan that would have occurred a few months after Perry arrived. I doubt the Japanese would have preferred a Tsarist opening, but it's one of the intriguing unanswerables of history: how would subsequent history have played out if the Russian Navy, as opposed to the American, had arrived in Tokyo Bay.

RB


----- Original Message ----
From: Francis Turner <francis.turner at gmail.com>
To: Discussion of the works of Lois McMaster Bujold. <lois-bujold at lists.herald.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 3:43:49 PM
Subject: Re: [LMB] About Gregor

On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 8:02 PM,  <alayne at twobikes.ottawa.on.ca> wrote:
>  You might want to read _Fateful Choices_ by Ian Kershaw. The chapters on
>  Japan provide an interesting commentary into the reasons behind Japan's
>  bad choices in 1935-41.
>

I haven't read the book but I will.

However, at least one choice was made by the fact that the Japanese
army was unable to fight at the same quality level as the navy. Hence
the defeats against the Soviet Union (e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khalkhin_Gol ) and hence the
way that Japan was more or less forced onto a naval path for
subsequent expansion. Had the IJA been able to beat the soviets they
might have got access to Siberian resources and not needed to worry
about oil etc. from elsewhere.

It is my belief (and not just me see
http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/jhist2.htm and
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2383226 ) that a large chunk of the way Japan
developed can be placed at the hands of Germany, France and Russia in
1885 when their triple intervention meant that Japan was forced to
give back much of its gains from the Sino-Japanese war.

Being metaphorically told by the grown ups to "put it back the way you
found it" was a major cause of subsequent Japanese military expansion
and a lot more besides. This is of course another key difference with
Barrayar. Apart from Prince Serg's Escobar adventure (which was beaten
off militarily, but then so was the Cetagandan invasion) the
Barrayarans have not been forced to do things by other "great powers".


-- 
http://www.di2.nu/blog.htm
Faber's Fourth Law:
Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
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