While Emperor Hirohito was certainly not Hitler, the Nanking massacre of 1937, when some 150,000 Chinese civilians were bestially slaughtered in his name, was a form of genocidal murder. The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, regarded by the west as insignificant, set the stage for the coming "total" war. Yet the conflict's many other theatres and fronts are not ignored. The war was won and lost on the Eastern Front all other campaigns were peripheral. He presents the standard British narrative of the 1939-1945 conflict built round the rise and fall of Hitler and his attempts to assert hegemony over Europe. Hastings, a conservative historian and former newspaper editor, is drawn to British acts of decency, with a faint antipathy towards foreigners, especially if they happen to be Japanese.
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