MIT History

Faculty

John W. Dower

Ford International Professor of History

John Dower, Professor of Japanese history, received his Ph.D. in 1972 in History and Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University. Professor Dower's interests lie in modern Japanese history and US-Japan relations. He also has broken new ground through his scholarly use of visual materials and other expressions of popular culture in reexamining Japanese and US-Asian history. His numerous publications include War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, which was honored with several prizes; Empire and Aftermath, a study of the life and times of the diplomat and later prime minister Yoshida Shigeru; and Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays. He also was the executive producer of a documentary film entitled Hellfire -- A Journey from Hiroshima, which was nominated in 1988 for an Academy Award.

His most recent book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, won numerous honors, including the Pulitzer Prize in Letters for General Nonfiction, National Book Award in Nonfiction, Bancroft Prize in American History, John K. Fairbank Prize in Asian History, Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History, Mark Lynton History Prize, and L. L. Winship/PEN New England Prize.

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