John W. Dower

John W . Dower (b. 1935) is an American author, professor, and historian; his primary focus is modern Japan and U.S.-Japan relations. He is perhaps best known for his book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Letters for General Nonfiction, the National Book Award in Nonfiction, the Bancroft Prize in American History, and the Yamagata Banto Prize for Creative Work on Japan by a Non-Japanese Scholar.

Related Topics:
1935 - American - Japan - Pulitzer Prize - National Book Award - Bancroft Prize - Yamagata Banto Prize

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Dower earned an American Studies bachelor's degree from Amherst College in 1959. During the 1960s he was a member of a group of Asian scholars wishing to reconcile their work with the new political landscape that developed as a result of the Vietnam War. The group established the revisionist academic journal Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. Dower eventually sat on the editorial board of the journal alongside Noam Chomsky and Herbert Bix.

Related Topics:
Bachelor's degree - Amherst College - 1959 - 1960s - Vietnam War - Revisionist - Academic journal - Noam Chomsky - Herbert Bix

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In 1972 Dower earned a Ph.D in History and Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University. He later expanded his dissertation, a biography of former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, into the book Empire and Aftermath. In 1975 he published a selection of writings by historian and Canadian diplomat E. Herbert Norman, a book Dower introduced as tribute to one of his inspirations.

Related Topics:
1972 - Ph.D - Harvard University - Yoshida Shigeru - 1975 - Canadian - E. Herbert Norman

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Dower has long been an advocate for international peace, and was the executive producer of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Hellfire - a Journey from Hiroshima in 1988.

Related Topics:
Academy Award - 1988

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He has taught at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, San Diego, and he is currently Ford International Professor of History at MIT.

Related Topics:
University of Wisconsin - University of California, San Diego - MIT

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