pstrongWinner of the Pulitzer PrizestrongppstrongA startling work -- awesomely ambitious, faultlessly researched, daring in its thesis, and profound in its implications. -- emBusiness WeekemstrongppstrongMagnificent. . . . everything a political biography should be. -- emRichmond Times-DispatchemstrongppThis rich and powerful biography is now given fresh relevance with a new introduction by the author that explores how Hirohito's legacy persists in Japan to this day, and how US foreign policy in the region in the last ten years is informed by our troubled past with Japan and with Hirohito as a ruler specifically.ppTrained since childhood to lead his nation as a living deity, Japan's Emperor Hirohito cultivated the image of a reluctant, detached monarch, a fa ade which masked a fierce cunning and powerful ambition. Historian Herbert P. Bix has unearned hundreds of previously untapped documents including the unpublished letters and diaries of Hirohito's royal court, tracing the key event