Reddit reviews The Pacific War: 1931-1945 (Pantheon Asia Library)

From my limited perspective as someone who has studied both European History and, specifically, Japanese history - a great amount of animosity is still seething to this day, especially with Japan's most direct neighbors: Korea and China. Much of this is due to the fact that the Government of Japan has made very few apologies for the crimes committed during the Imperial regime. Germany, on the other hand, has made numerous apologies for the war crimes committed in the name of the Third Reich.

A text I highly reccommend on this topic is Ienaga's Pacific War, 1931-1945 which goes into great detail about how Japan ended up the way it did in the years immediately before World War II.

Not to trivialize or attempt to rationalize the atrocities committed by Germany, Japan, and even the Allies - but a great deal of the most vicious crimes in the war can be boiled down to Nationalism. Nazi Germany was fighting in the name of German honor, much of the military (perhaps, say, the SS) did not have associations with the Nazi party and fought in the name of the Fatherland. The Japanese Empire, similarly, was fighting for the Divine Emperor. The public, in many ways, was terribly brainwashed. Again, Ienaga's text goes into great detail about how, from the turn of the 20th Century onward, Japan was getting its public accustomed to the notion of a God-Emperor. Really terrifying when you look at it in retrospect, huh?

• The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame by Honda Katsuichi
  
• The Pacific War: 1931-1945 by Saburo Ienaga
  
• Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict by Edwin P. Hoyt
  
  
  These are books that we used for our class on World War II in the Pacific at my university. I found them helpful and insightful, as two of them are perspectives of Japanese writers.

http://www.amazon.com/Midway-Battle-Doomed-Japan-Japanese/dp/1557504288?tag=duckduckgo-d-20
This is a compelling read.

http://www.amazon.com/Pacific-War-1931-1945-Saburo-Ienaga/dp/0394734963?tag=duckduckgo-d-20
Not always well written, sometimes comes across as a polemic, but contains some great sources.

http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Japans-Kamikaze-Foreword-Admiral/dp/B000HZBKEI%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q%26t

That's all I can think of from the top of my head. I would also reccomend John Costello's *The Pacific War. It's a great synthesis, well sourced, and doesn't treat Burma as a sideshow.


Might I also suggest a crosspost to r/history? They're a helpful bunch.