Overview

The military general who became Emperor Hirohito's prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan into World War II and--after spectacular losses--was eventually executed as a war criminal. Yet Tojo was far more than his ignominious end. In fact, as Peter Mauch argues, he was one of the twentieth century's most accomplished military statesmen. Over a career of some forty years, Tojo successfully launched himself into the highest echelons of political power. He was not only a tactical genius, but also a savvy administrator, a fierce imperialist, and a deeply loyal advisor. Tojo's career took off with the notorious Kwantung Army in Manchuria, where he played a key role in escalating the Sino-Japanese War during the 1930s. As he rose through the ranks, becoming minister of war and then army chief of staff, he honed the efficiency of the Imperial Army and enhanced its influence. All the while, he deftly negotiated the fractious military rivalries that arose wherever he went. Brilliant, ambitious, and often ruthless, Tojo reached political heights that were perhaps matched only by his precipitous fall in the final months of World War II. Layered and evocative, Tojo is at once a riveting military history of Showa-era Japan and a nuanced portrait of the relentless personality at its center.

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Peter Mauch lectures in Asian history at Western Sydney University in Australia. He is the author of Sailor Diplomat: Nomura Kichisaburō and the Japanese-American War. Eric Jason Martin is a producer, director, and voice performer based in Los Angeles. He is the AudioFile Earphones and Audie Award-winning narrator of over 200 audiobooks, including works by Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Karin Slaughter, and Lee Child. Eric's recent productions include the Audible Original Stinker Lets Loose!, a New York Times Monthly Bestseller also starring Jon Hamm and Rhea Seehorn, and he is the director of Kate McKinnon and Emily Lynne's musical comedy series Heads Will Roll for Broadway Video and Audible. Joe Barrett began his acting career at the age of five in the basement of his family's home in upstate New York. He has gone on to play many stage roles, both on and off-Broadway, and in regional theaters from Los Angeles, Houston, and St. Louis to Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Maine. He has appeared in films and television, both prime time and late night, and in hundreds of television and radio commercials. Joe has narrated over two hundred audiobooks. He has been an Audie Award finalist eight times, and his narration of Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman won the 2013 Audie Award for Original Work. AudioFile magazine has granted Joe fourteen Earphones Awards, including for James Salter's All That Is and Donald Katz's Home Fires. Regarding Joe's narration of John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, AudioFile said, ""This moving book comes across like a concerto . . . with a soloist-Owen's voice-rising from the background of an orchestral narration."" Joe is married to actor Andrea Wright, and together they have four very grown children.

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