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Review of Dower's War Without Mercy. Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race
and Power in the Pacific War. Pantheon Books, New York, 1986. ...
war without mercy. paper from: http://www.kevincmurphy.com/dower.html John Dower,
War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War. List: 20th Century. ...
war without mercy. ... I agree with Dower’s ideal that racism shaped self
and other images, and made war fierce and without mercy. ...
War Without Mercy. War Without Mercy In “War Without Mercy”, Dower’s
principle is a surprising one: Though Western allies were ...
... Japanese American Relocation. John W. Dower War Without Mercy (New York:
Pantheon, 1986), 8. 2 Ibid., 3. 3 Ibid. The Germans as ...
Submitted by rthendon on April 8, 2008
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War Without Mercy
In “War Without Mercy”, Dower’s principle is a surprising one: Though Western allies were clearly headed for victory, pure racism fueled the persistence and increase of hostilities in the Pacific setting during the final year of World War II, a period that saw as many casualties as in the first five years of the conflict combined. Dower does not reach this disturbing conclusion lightly. He combed through loads of propaganda films, news articles, military documents, and cartoons. Though his case is strong, Dower reduces other factors, such as the prolonged negotiations between the West and the Japanese.
During World War II, with the alliance of Germany and Italy made a propaganda campaign of obvious anti-white racism somewhat unreasonable. Furthermore, Japan's history of rapid and often passionate Westernization while opposing to colonialization by western powers largely prohibited such a propaganda approach. It is Dower's central idea that racial fear and hate were major factors that determined how both sides, Japanese and Anglo-American, perceived and dealt with the respective enemy, the "formulaic expression of Self and Other."
Dower begins by examining the propaganda thrown out by both war machines (including a Frank Capra documentary, Know Your Enemy - Japan) and finds fundamental patterns of stereotyping. A few clichés that were found in this film was that it originally portrayed the Japanese as ordinary humans victimized by their leaders. "In everyday words," he writes, the "first kind of stereotyping could be summed up in the statement: you are the opposite of what you say you are and the opposite of us, not peaceful but warlike, not good but bad...In the second form of stereotyping, the formula ran more like this: you are what you say you are, but that itself is reprehensible." (30)
Japan, Germany and Italy, all world powers with great leaders and whose people were in great quantity. Overall,...
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