Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954 (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

Yoshida was a fascinating character. As a classical colonialist of the British school he did not as a Japanese consul mind at all Japanese encrouchement upon China (after all the Western powers all did the same), but what he did mind was conflict with the UK and US over spheres of influence there, which he desperately tried to avoid. The Brits tried to give him a fair hearing in order to seek compromise with Japan, since they did not fight war at two fronts. But then it increasingly became clear that Yoshida had become a freelancer without authority to talk on behalf of Tokyo. Dismissed into retirement by MoFA he was soon ignored ignomiously. He continued to plot cautiously for peace negotiations (for which the Allies were unavailable) and then for surrender, until the Kempetai got wind of this and briefly threw him into jail. This qualification endeared him to MacArthur and SCAP to make him postwar PM of Japan, a task which he fulfilled against all odds twice. This is a first rate, th