Barak Kushner, “Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice” (Harvard UP, 2015)

Barak Kushner, “Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice” (Harvard UP, 2015)

Barak Kushner‘s new book considers what happened in the wake of Japan’s surrender, looking closely at diplomatic and military efforts to bring “Japanese imperial behavior” to justice. Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice (Harvard University Press, 2015) focuses on the aftermath of the Japanese war crimes, asking a number of important questions: “How did the Chinese legally deal with Japanese war crimes?” and “What were the Japanese responses, and [how] did these processes shape early Cold War Sino-Japanese relations?” Two ways of reconsidering history shape the study. First, Kushner reframes Japan as a decolonizing empire, not just a defeated country. At the same time, he looks at the “shifting landscape of the concept of law in East Asia” and its impact on relations in the region during this period, especially in terms of international law and associated notions of accountability. These two broad historiographical re-orientations motivate an extraordinarily thoughtful and detailed treatment of the ways that conflict between the KMT and the CCP, and relations of both with other global powers, shaped the notion and history of war crimes trials. It’s a clearly written and compellingly argued account that’s also a pleasure to read! To hear our conversation about Barak’s previous book Slurp!: A Social and Culinary History of Ramen – Japan’s Favorite Noodle Soup, see here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

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Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, "Fleeced: Unraveling the History of Wool and War" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, "Fleeced: Unraveling the History of Wool and War" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Not everything about wool is warm and fuzzy. Wool, for millennia the cold climate textile fiber, has a long relationship to war, both in terms of supporting it and causing it. Wool's strategic value i...

1 Mar 1h 9min

Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)

Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)

Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans examines the impact of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) ec...

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Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)

Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)

During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, mended, lost, and stole, Americans expressed their al...

27 Feb 55min

American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong with Brenda Wineapple and Geoff Wisner

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Wednesday, February 18—Called “the greatest American diary of the nineteenth century,” the journal of the patrician New York City lawyer George Templeton Strong stands as a remarkable documentary reco...

23 Feb 1h

Colleen M. Moore, "The Peasants' War: Russia's Home Front in the First World War and the End of the Autocracy" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

Colleen M. Moore, "The Peasants' War: Russia's Home Front in the First World War and the End of the Autocracy" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

During the First World War, Russia relied on the mass mobilization of its peasant population. In the summer of 1914, approximately four million peasants answered the state’s call to arms, while the mi...

14 Feb 55min

Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Gady, "Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century" (Howgate Publishing, 2026)

Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Gady, "Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century" (Howgate Publishing, 2026)

In Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2026), Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Gady challenge one of modern war’s most influential do...

14 Feb 1h 51min

Claire Morelon, "Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prague, 1914–1920" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Claire Morelon, "Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prague, 1914–1920" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Prague entered the First World War as the third city of the Habsburg empire, but emerged in 1918 as the capital of a brand new nation-state, Czechoslovakia. In Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prag...

13 Feb 42min

Mark Stout, "World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence" (UP of Kansas, 2023)

Mark Stout, "World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence" (UP of Kansas, 2023)

Ask an American intelligence officer to tell you when the country started doing modern intelligence and you will probably hear something about the Office of Strategic Services in World War II or the N...

11 Feb 1h 12min

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