Embracing Defeat cover art

Embracing Defeat

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Embracing Defeat

By: John W. Dower
Narrated by: Edward Lewis
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 2000

National Book Award, Nonfiction, 1999

In this illuminating study, Dower explores the ways in which the shattering defeat of the Japanese in World War II, followed by over six years of American military occupation, affected every level of Japanese society. He describes the countless ways in which the Japanese met the challenge of "starting over", from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes, fears, and activities of ordinary men and women in every walk of life. He shows us the intense and turbulent interplay of conqueror and conquered, West and East, in a way no Western historian has done before.

This is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary moment in history, when new values warred with the old, and early ideals of demilitarization and radical reform were soon challenged by the United States' decision to incorporate Japan into the Cold War Pax Americana.

©1999 John W. Dower (P)1999 Blackstone Audio Inc. 20th Century Asia Japan Military Modern World War United States Imperialism

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Kokoro cover art
The Japanese cover art
Middlemarch cover art
Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East cover art
The Coming of the Third Reich cover art
Three Tigers, One Mountain cover art
Unlawful Killings cover art
The Anarchy cover art
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789 cover art
American Prometheus cover art
The Storm Before the Storm cover art
Six Months That Changed the World cover art
A Distant Mirror cover art
The Norman Conquest cover art
The Third Reich at War cover art
The Thirty Years War cover art

Critic reviews

  • Winner of the 1999 National Book Award for Non-Fiction

"A magisterial and beautifully written book....A pleasure to read." (New York Times)
"An extraordinarily illuminating book....Surely the most significant work to date on the postwar era in Japan." (Wall Street Journal)
"The writing of history doesn't get much better than this....[Dower] deftly situates the political story within a rich cultural context....The book is most remarkable, however, for the way Dower judiciously explores the complex moral and political issues....Dazzling." (Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant  
The book's content is good and well-researched. I would highly recommend Dower's work to anyone interested or researching Post-War Japanese society. However, the narration is very bad, very robotic and impersonal. I couldn't continue.

Informative, but poor narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
excellent well researched and exhaustive,goto book on Japanese American relationship after the war.
narrator does well with Japanese words
Chapters end very quickly

long listen!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Perfect coverage of the most important period in Japanese history. Excellent balance between hard facts and interesting anecdotes

excellent !

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Narrator sounds like a robot. His pitch and tone is all over the place. Really struggling to finish.

Narrator spoils interesting history

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The books content is very good but the robotic narration sounds as if someone used AI rather than a human. I've actually reverted to reading it rather than listening to it. Don't buy the ebook.

Good book, horrible narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.