Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan

by IanBuruma (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.49

  Why are Germans so well informed on World War II while most Japanese know almost nothing about it? Why do the majority of West Germans feel guilty, Japanese victimised, and 'Ossies' virtuous? Ian Buruma explores the causes of these varied attitudes, both in the past culture of each country and in their post-war treatment and other subsequent events, and looks at how they were or are manifested in museums and memorials, trials and textbooks. The result is a fascinating study of the many faces of events, studded with unexpected facts and rare insights.

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $3.49

  Between the early 1930s and 1945, a European country and an East Asian country embarked on the most destructive colonial adventure the world has ever seen, and committed atrocities which the victims and their children have never been able to forget. This book explores the ways in which the Germans and the Japanese have come to terms with the past, and investigates the painful realities of living with guilt - and of denying it. The author encounters people whose honesty in confronting the past is brave, and others who astonish by the ingenuity of their evasion of responsibility. In Auschwitz, Berlin, Hiroshima and Tokyo he explores the contradictory attitudes of scholars, politicians and survivors, and his concern throughout is to show how obsession with the past, especially distorted versions of it, is a threat to democracy today in two of the world's most powerful countries.