Koichi Mera, with a Ph. D. from Harvard, has been city planner, economist, public administration specialist, and business professor with Harvard, Tsukuba, Tokyo International Universities, and USC. He has started a history study group on Japan in Los Angeles since 2006.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementChapter 1: Japan Twice Trapped: the Pacific War and BeyondChapter 2: The Tokyo War Crimes Trails: A Travesty of Legal JusticeChapter 3: Japan among Competing PowersChapter 4: The Historical Implications of Japan’s Resistance to ColonizationChapter 5: Japan’s Challenge to Racial Discrimination Chapter 6: President Roosevelt Pushed Japan to RetaliateChapter 7: Japan’s Total Defeat in the Information WarChapter 8: American Occupation Policy of Castrating JapanChapter 9: The Historical Legacy of World War II in AsiaChapter 10: Conclusions: Japan Should Take Pride in Her PastAppendix A: Imperial Rescript on the Declaration of War Released by the Cabinet at 1100 Hours on 8 December 1941 (Japan Time)Appendix B: The Concluding Testimony of General Hideki Tojo at the International Military Tribunal for the Far EastAppendix C: General Douglas MacArthur’s Testimony on Japan before the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees of the U.S. Senate on May 3, 1951(Excerpt)BibliographyIndex

Whose Back Was Stabbed? is a startling but important Japanese view of what led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War, and what happened to the Japanese nation and people after the air raids. Professor Koichi Mera’s personal account of a narrow escape from Korea leads into a look at what the American occupation of Japan—supposedly America’s and MacArthur’s finest hour—meant to people who had no chance to respond to a propaganda assault on recent Japanese history. The U.S. authorities and their ‘court historians’ fostered a myth of mindless Japanese aggression that persists to this very day under the guise of patriotism. There are two sides to every quarrel. Professor Mera fearlessly tells the other side.