The book brings together discussions of leading aspects of the Asia-Pacific War which still have huge relevance today. The topics addressed range from the development of war guilt and responsibility in postwar Japan to the vivid impact of art on bringing alive the reality and cruelty of the war and the need for nations to co-exist in peace.

Yasuko Claremont is an honorary senior lecturer in Japanese Studies, at the University of Sydney. Her recent publications include Citizen Power: Postwar Reconciliation, written in English and Japanese (2017) and Ishibumi: a memorial to the atomic annihilation of 321 students of Hiroshima Second Middle School, translated with Roman Rosenbaum (2016).

Introduction: From Enemy to Friend, Donald Keene Part 1: Conflicting Attitudes towards Imperial Japan 1. Tracing 'Victimizer Consciousness': The Emergence and Development of War Guilt and Responsibility in Postwar Japan, Takashi YOSHIDA 2. The Girl, the Flower, and the Constitution in 1945 (and 2015), Tomoko AOYAMA Part 2-Reconciliation in Postwar Japan, Australia, China and Taiwan 3. 'Reconciliation' in Postwar History-The Need for Resolution Resulting from Japan's Colonial Period, Aiko UTSUMI 4. Peace in Our Region: Prisoners of War and Australia's Relationship with Japan, 1945-1960, Christina Twomey 5. Listening for the Sound of History: Lung Ying-tai's Big River, Big Sea and Its Vision for Reconciliation in Taiwan and China, Conrad Bauer Part 3-The Aftermath of Hiroshima 6. The Valorization of the Atomic Bomb: Blast Power over the After-Effects of Radiation, Yuko SHIBATA 7. Experience and Hope: The Nuclear Issue and Asia through the Life of the Novelist Hayashi Kyoko, Teru SHIMAMURA Part 4-Establishing Civil Society 8. Civil Resistance in Japan in Response to Political Domination, Yasuko Claremont 9. Oda Makoto and Grassroots Citizenship Movements-Beheiren, Roman Rosenbaum 10. Civil Society, Remembering and Un-Remembering: Two Faces of Grassroots Action in Japan, Tessa Morris-Suzuki Part 5-Memories Reconstructed and Reimagined 11. War Memories Represented in Theatre: The One Day of the Year, The Floating World, The Spirits Play and Black Diggers, Keiji SAWADA 12. Unsettling Nostalgia through Irony: Cinematic War Memory and Gender, by Rio OTOMO, Barbara Hartley, and Katsuhiko SUGANUMA 13. Inoue Hisashi and the Tokyo Trials Trilogy, Masahito TAKAYASHIKI