Stephen S. Large is Reader in Modern Japanese History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He has published widely in his subject.

Introduction; Chapter 1 The making of the Sh?wa Emperor; Chapter 2 Japanese aggression and the limits of imperial influence, 1926-1933; Chapter 3 The challenge of Sh?wa Restoration radicalism, 1931-1937; Chapter 4 The Emperor and war, 1937-1940; Chapter 5 World war and the imperial will, 1941-1945; Chapter 6 The Emperor and the Occupation, 1945-1952; Chapter 7 The politics of imperial symbolism, 1952-1970; Chapter 8 The Emperor and the imperial institution in late Sh?wa Japan, 1970-1989; Conclusion;

Emperor Hirohito reigned for more than sixty years, yet we know little about him or the part he really played in the turbulent history of Showa Japan.
Stephen Large draws on a wide range of Japanese and Western sources in his study of Emperor Hirohito's political role in Showa Japan (1926-89). This analysis focuses on key events in his career such as the extent to which he bore responsibility for Japanese aggression in the Pacific in 1941, and explains why Hirohito remains such a contested symbol in Japanese post war politics.