Winner of the Pulitzer Prize“A startling work — awesomely ambitious, faultlessly researched, daring in its thesis, and profound in its implications." — Business Week"Magnificent. . . . everything a political biography should be." — Richmond Times-DispatchThis rich and powerful political biography is now given fresh relevance with a new introduction by the author that explores how Hirohito’s legacy persists in Japan ...

In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status. Influence...