Japan Times Reviews Troubled Apologies
The Japan Times recently reviewed Alexis Dudden’s Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States. The review begins:
Alexis Dudden engagingly explores how the nexus of politics, war memory and apology shapes contemporary trilateral relations between Korea, Japan and the United States. She addresses critical questions concerning the meanings of apology for different people and why repentance for the past is so difficult to express and seldom judged sufficient.
As the review points out the United States firebombing of Tokyo, Japan and Korea’s continuing dispute about the islets of Dokdo/Takeshima, and Japan’s unwillingness to make sincere apologies for its past actions continue to shape and in many cases unsettle relations between the three nations.
