In the years and months leading up to Pearl Harbor, Japan was becoming the most industrialized state in Asia, as well as the repository of a martial heritage that fueled imperial ambitions of conquest and hegemony. Across the Pacific, the United States was emerging from the depression and again growing into its role as a global power. Today’s partnership between modern Japan and the United States was forged by the confrontation, and finally the reconciliation, of these two competing agendas and cultures in World War II, a drama that was defined by two men: General Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito. Under celebrated historian Robert Harvey's scrutiny, these two iconographic figures are brought into full relief, producing a nuanced narrative as well as a revealing portrait of these extraordinary figures. American Shogun delivers a remarkable account of the vast divide that led to war, and to the unforeseen commonality that helped develop a lasting peace.