Kenneth Ruoff's previous book, The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945–1995 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asian Center, 2001), explored both continuities and transformations in the emperor's role in postwar Japanese politics and society. By doing so, Ruoff tackled the biggest taboo in postwar Japan at that time: the war responsibility of Emperor Hirohito. In Imperial Japan at Its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire's 2600 ^thAnniversary, Ruoff this time sheds light upon another neglected aspect of wartime Japan: the war responsibility of the Japanese people. He challenges the conventional narrative that holds that all through the war, ordinary people were drawn into participation by a small number of militaristic leaders who alone are to be blamed. Ruoff argues that at least until the tide of war turned decisively against Japan, many ordinary Japanese in fact enjoyed their lives, took great pride in the success of the imperial armed forces, and enthusiastically supported their country's war efforts.

Ruoff focuses on the boom in wartime tourism and consumption, which remained vibrant throughout the 1930s and crested in the year 1940, when Imperial Japan commemorated the 2600^th anniversary of the founding of the empire, and remained popular even after the country entered into war against the United States. Ruoff shows that the “history” of unbroken imperial succession (bansei ikkei) celebrated in 1940 was written by the country's leading historians and was profitably promoted by non state actors including scholars, newspaper companies, publishers, travel agents, railroad companies and department stores. Local governments and municipalities fiercely competed to gain official authorization as national sacred sites for the economic benefits they expected to reap. People devoured media reports of the fighting, purchased publications that glorified the national history, volunteered for labor service projects, and spent their money on tours to patriotic sites throughout Japan, Korea, and Manchuria. Ruoff concludes, in short, that by actively engaging in these activities, the public sustained and promoted the government's wartime ideology and foreign policy agenda. In pursuing the question of the public's war responsibility and accountability, he attempts to rectify the wartime “myth” of a passive and reluctant populous led into the “dark valley” by military and civilian zealots that was crafted in postwar Japan.

In general, Ruoff thesis of ordinary peoples' war responsibility has been resisted by both liberals and conservatives in postwar Japanese society. Most ordinary Japanese citizens hold a view of themselves as traumatized victims of the U.S. atomic bombings, firebombing of major cities, and saturation conventional bombing, and as victims of their own government, which was disseminating false information to its own people. This self-image as victims of violence, rather than its perpetrators was widely shared, particularly because of the intensity of the physical and psychological impact of the two atomic bombings as amplified through the country's history education and mass media. At the same time, the early return of prewar conservative leaders to political power and their subsequent domination of national politics under the aegis of the U.S. Cold War geopolitics further diluted the Japanese people's sense of war guilt.

A second major contribution is the author's detailed examination of the 2600^th anniversary celebrations as a case study of wartime popular nationalism. The analysis is enhanced by some comparisons the author draws to parallel events in other nations, particularly the Axis countries. Few scholars, so far, have dealt with the 2600^th anniversary despite its profound political significance and influence upon the minds and morale of the Japanese public.

Third, Ruoff demonstrates that the history of wartime Japan is incomplete unless Imperial Japan is positioned as an empire and Japan proper is analyzed in relationship to its colonies and beyond where Japanese resided overseas. This analytical approach illuminates how the government sought to mobilize, as imperial subjects, all Japanese who lived within and outside the empire regardless of their citizenship and country of residence. It further foregrounds the considerable flow of tourism from Japan proper to its formal and informal colonies as part of the government's campaign to exalt the imperial ideology by impressing on travelers Japan's modernization achievements.

While this work successfully revealed that tourism and mass consumerism reached new heights during the so-called “dark valley” period, the reader should take note of the following points in drawing conclusions as to ordinary people's political consciousness.

First, there is a question whether the public's travel and mass consumption in conjunction with the commemoration of the country's 2600^th anniversary were purely voluntary acts. What is “voluntary” in a society saturated with state indoctrination? It would be more precise to describe the wartime period as one characterized by the interpenetration of voluntarism and governmental control. In fact, the author acknowledges as much when he shows that it was virtually through command from above that people were mobilized into various commemorative activities, including precisely timed mass rituals and labor services. Also it is important to recall that travel and consumption in conjunction with the national foundation celebrations were among the few forms of leisure sanctioned by the state at a time when ordinary people were constantly exhorted to scrimp and save under the national general mobilization act.

Second, I suggest that a number of contextual factors not sufficiently acknowledged by the author need to be factored into any assessment of the war responsibility of ordinary Japanese. By 1937, what was the extent of civil society in Japan where citizens could act autonomously of the state? To what extent did private companies exercise autonomy even in the economic sphere? What role did the Imperial Army's policies to alleviate the economic distress of farmers and workers play in their participation?

Finally, I suggest the need to draw a sharper distinction than the author does between ordinary people and social elites such as academicians, newspaper companies, and local government officials rather than group them all together as the general public.

In conclusion, while the author's focus on tourism, consumption and the 2600^th anniversary celebration usefully revises the stark “dark valley” narrative of the wartime experience of ordinary Japanese, it is still reasonable to conclude that the government, not the populace, was the principal political actor and governmental command and indoctrination cannot be discounted. In other words, the government leaders saw the commemoration of the country's 2600^th anniversary as a chance to solidify people's support for the national war policy.