Brief Thread for Japan historians: I am finishing up a paper on "grand strategy" (?) and decision-making in Japan in the 1930s, and 1940s, and have found the following books very instructive and worth reading.

Many of these explain the nature of policy in prewar Japan. 1/

First, Mori Yasuo's (森靖夫) 日本陸軍と日中戦争への道.

This book in part highlights the divisions in the army, and shows how in the 1930s the army ministry lost policymaking influence to the army general staff. 2/

Second, Hatano Sumio, Tobe Ryōichi, Matsumoto Takashi, Shōji Jun’ichirō, and Kawashima Shin's 日中戦争ー決定版

I have found the essays by Tobe Ryōichi really helpful in explaining the winding road in Sino-Japanese relations that led to the war's outbreak. 3/

Third, Moriyama Atsushi's (森山優) 日本はなぜ開戦に踏み切ったか：「両論併記」と「非決定」

This book goes into great detail about the overall policymaking process in Japan, and should be REQUIRED READING for anyone who wants to understand the era's and war's political history. 4/

Moriyama's book is actually an adapted version (for a more popular audience) of his 1998 treatise, 日米開戦の政治過程, which outlines his notion of the ambiguity of policies and the avoidance of decision-making that occurred in liaison conferences. 5/

What saddens me about this new book is that he backed off of his original idea of 非決定 (non-decision), and in the new book refers to it as 非（避）決定. It's a cute turn of phrase, as 非決定 and 避決定 are read the same way, but I like the power of 非 in the original! 6/

The reason I mention these books is because I have seen some recent scholarship that speaks of the military in a way that makes it seem as a unitary actor, and doesn't distinguish between the general staffs and the military ministries. This is really problematic. 7/

I may follow up with a thread on how policymaking was achieved... but not today. END/ (For now)