SUGIHARA Seishiro

Author Profile: SUGIHARA Seishiro
Sugihara Seishiro was born in Hiroshima prefecture in 1941. He graduated from the
University of Tokyo, and later taught at Josai University and Musashino University. He has
published extensively in the fields of Japanese educational philosophy and comparative
education, and also modern diplomatic history, in particular prewar relations between Japan
and the United States, and the Allied occupation of Japan.
Sugihara has vigorously pursued the question of war responsibility. He has examined at
length the role of key prewar and wartime policy-makers—from Japan’s Foreign Ministry
to the Roosevelt administration—with an overriding conviction that the tragic war in the
Pacific was entirely avoidable. Ultimately, his concern has been for the repercussions of
these failed and ill-considered policies, and their continued damaging legacy for
contemporary Japanese society.
Foreign views on the lamentable Japan-U.S. war, and the tragic outbreak of that war, have
been consistently rendered into Japanese for distribution and discussion within Japan.
Sadly, the reverse has not been true, that is, Japanese views on those tragic events are seldom translated and promulgated outside Japan. Sugihara has worked hard to address this
deficiency and provides a platform for the dissemination of Japanese views outside of Japan.
His publications include:
Nihon no Shinto-Bukkyo to Sei-Kyo bunri: soshite shukyo kyoiku [Shinto and Buddhism in
Japan and the Separation of Church and State] (Bunka Shobo Hakubunsha, 1992, reissued
2001.)
Japanese Perspectives on Pearl Harbor: A Critical Review of Japanese Reports on the
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack, trans. Theodore McNelly (Asian Research
Service, 1995.)
Between Incompetence and Culpability: Assessing the Diplomacy of Japan’s Foreign
Ministry from Pearl Harbor to Potsdam, trans. Norman Hu (University Press of America,
1997.)
Chiune Sugihara and Japan’s Foreign Ministry: Between Incompetence and Culpability
Part Two, trans. Norman Hu (University Press of America, 2001.)
Nihon no dotoku kyoiku wa Kankoku ni manabe: Dotoku kyoiku kyoka-ka e no shishin
[Japan can learn from Korea’s ethical education: Guidelines for an ethical education
curriculum.] (Bunka Shobo Hakubunsha, 2007.)