The Wages of Guilt is a major work of cultural history, and one that
only Ian Buruma could have written. Buruma is perhaps the West's leading
commentator about Asian politics and culture, and he has a deep
familiarity with Europe as well. His subject in this book is the legacy
of World War II and the complicated and very different ways Germany and
Japan have dealt with it. He contrasts the official propaganda in the
former East Germany with West German efforts to come to terms with the
Holocaust. In Japan, he looks into the polarized debate between those
who wish to whitewash and forget and those who use Hiroshima and the
Japanese atrocities in Asia to warn against resurgent militarism. In a
mixture of essay and reportage, he paints a complex and provocative
picture of East and West under the shadow of the Cold War. In the course
of his investigation, he visits memorial sites, talks to politicians,
intellectuals, and people in the streets, and analyzes the work of
journalists, artists, and historians. Buruma's lively and comprehensive
account of our two major allies and their diverging approaches to their
own pasts illuminates profound questions of moral responsibility and
national identity.
