Abstract
Okinawa is the former southernmost Prefecture of Japan proper—that is, of Japan minus the territory she acquired in the fifty years starting with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Near the end of the Second World War it was the site of a tremendous air, sea, and land battle which resulted in the first of three great wounds to the Japanese nation which forced its surrender. The three—the other two were of course Hiroshima and Nagasaki—are comparable in the number of deaths: 150,000 Japanese died in the prolonged Battle of Okinawa, including one in eight of the civilian population.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.
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