War Without Mercy

Review of War Without Mercy Throughout the years there have been many books written about the Great World Wars. As a young child, my grandfather who served on the U.S.S Indianapolis owned a massive amount of books specifically about World War II. Every day that I spent with him we would flip through the pages of the endless books at our disposal. He would reminisce and tell me all of his war stories with great enthusiasm until he was blue in the face. He sparked an interest of history and World War II in me at such a young age and this interest carried with me. Reading John W. Dower’s book War Without Mercy reminded me of all the great memories that my grandfather and I shared. In this book, Dower tackles the idea that the United States went to greater lengths vilifying and dehumanizing the Japanese than the Germans during the Second World War. Over the course of this paper I will analyze and interpret this book providing needed information as well as a general overview.
Throughout all of history, it is clear that racism in present in most societies. For some reason or another, people tend to segregate themselves. This could be done for a number of reasons. By in large, most want to become the leading power in their society. War Without Mercy does a great job of showing this. Dower’s book is broken up into four main parts. The first section deals with the media in general. It shows the ways that both the United States and Japan would use film, radio broadcasting, or text to encourage racial attitudes. Dower points out very early on that “apart from the genocide of the Jews, racism remains one of the great neglected subjects of World War II.” (Dower 4)

Overall, War Without Mercy is a great book. It has thoroughly documented work and does a wonderful job explaining the propaganda of the war in the Pacific theatre. This book presents a side of the second Great World War that most do not truly understand. It does a tremendous job in