Talk:Japan's Imperial Conspiracy

Scholarly responses to the book
[The following commentary appeared in Talk:Battle of Saipan

The discussion of the mass suicides on Saipan relies much too heavily on David Bergamini's Japan's Imperial Conspiracy, which is a highly controversial source, without giving any indications of the controversy. Bergamini has been scathingly criticized by most mainstream scholars on this period in history:

Herbert P. Bix: "[Bergamini's] book took some courage, but embedded in it was a full-blown conspiracy theory that no sane person could accept." From an interview: http://cgi.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/foc/

Sheldon: "The book is a polemic which, to our knowledge, contradicts all previous scholarly work, whether in English or in Japanese. It also contradicts the facts upon which this previous scholarship rested. Specialists on Japan have unanimously demolished Bergamini's thesis and his pretensions to careful scholarship." From a peer-reviewed journal article: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2693904

David M. Kennedy (historian): "One reviewer observed that Bergamini was "believable only by violating every canon of acceptable documentation." The historian Barbara Tuchman said that Bergamini's thesis "appears to be almost entirely a product of the author's inference and of his predilection for the sinister explanation."" Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98apr/horror.htm

Theodore Cook: "You name it, He did it. The bible of the Hirohito conspiracy theorists. It asks many of the right questions. The problem is where he says he finds the answers. Best to avoid using, but read it to see where others get their “inside knowledge.”" Source: www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/sino-japanese/ChinaWarBib.pdf

Joshua A. Fogel "...David Bergamini’s Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, a work long ago dismissed by serious historians of Japan as based on little substantial evidence..." Source: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/china_review_international/v015/15.1.fogel.html

There are a number of links to academic criticisms of Japan's Imperial Conspiracy in Wikipedia's own article on the book. Unfortunately, they are mostly behind a subscription-only wall.

There's no question a large number of civilians killed themselves at Saipan, in one of the most dreadful incidents of the war in the Pacific. However, Bergamini's figure of 22,000 civilian suicides is implausible. The number of civilians on the island at the time of the invasion is given as 26,000 by Gordon L. Rottman, and American records indicate that 18,000 civilians were interned (http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=129784). That means the civilian suicides could have been as much as 8,000, still horrible but much less than Bergamini's figure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaush (talk • contribs) 17:21, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

No rebuttal whatsoever?
Other than the single sentence "His conclusions have not generally been accepted and his data and sources have been questioned", there is not a single iota of treatment of the prevailing opinion of scholars that this work is a crock. The sentence given suggests that a rebuttal section is critically needed. Fnj2 (talk) 01:18, 29 January 2014 (UTC)