Barak Kushner currently lectures on modern Japanese history at the University of Cambridge.
Completely individual and very interesting.... Kushner's book is, I
think, the first to treat propaganda as a profession in wartime
Japan. He follows it through its various stages and is particularly
interested in its popular acceptance - wartime comedy, variety
shows, how entertainers sought to bolster their careers by adopting
the prewar message, which then filtered down into society and took
hold. Using almost entirely primary materials, which have not
before been translated, Barak re-creates the wartime world in which
propaganda was the truth. In so doing, he has given us an eminently
readable account of an unknown aspect of the war and has defined
our understanding of it." — Japan Times
"[The Thought War] reveals a good deal more about Japan at war than
has been available heretofore in Western languages.... This soundly
researched book highlights the multiple, often ill-coordinated
sources of Japan's wartime propaganda.... [It] should help
considerably in advancing the urgent project of defining and
assessing responsibility, not only for Japan but for all
combatants, and not only for World War II but for all conflicts and
modes of political violence." — Journal of Japanese Studies
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