Seven Lives for the Emperor: War Comes from the East

Japan has always been incomprehensible to Europe — a mysterious distant country where people are completely unlike Europeans, where an emperor rules unchallenged, officially claiming descent from the sun goddess Amaterasu. But in the 20th century, the Japanese Empire became a real player on the world stage. It unleashed the Russo-Japanese War, seeking to establish its hegemony in the Far East, successfully supported the Entente in World War I, and drenched China and Korea in blood. In creating the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, it brought immense suffering to the peoples of this region. There was probably no crime that proud samurai, fighting in the name of their emperor, did not commit. How did this confrontation end? And did it end at all?

This and other questions are answered in the new book by Leonid Mlechin.