American Shogun is less interesting on the Japanese emperor. Herbert Bix's hostile 2000 book Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan perhaps casts too long a shadow. If anything, Harvey tries to see things from the emperor's point of view, presenting him as politically weak but not uncharitable in himself, and very much a puppet, first of his own military, then of the American desire to build up postwar Japan as a bulwark against Communism in Asia. Like MacArthur, Hirohito was a great survivor.
Taiwan features, most importantly in MacArthur's 1950 visit to Taipei to meet Chiang Kai-shek. What they discussed isn't known, but it may have been the possibility of Taiwanese forces attacking the mainland as a diversionary tactic during the Korean War. Truman vetoed all such ideas as likely to bring the Chinese Communists into Korea, but in the event they went in anyway.
Reading this book, I kept thinking of parallels between MacArthur and Antony in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra — unpopular with the political leadership (Octavius there, Truman here) but the bigger man nonetheless, and finding his true home away from the political heartland. MacArthur's Egypt was the Philippines he so loved, and his Cleopatra could be seen as the 16-year-old Isabel Rosario Cooper he had an affair with (though it should be noted that Cleopatra was 38 when Antony became involved with her). MacArthur never quite handed out kingdoms "as plates [coins] dropped from his pocket," as Cleopatra dreamt of Antony as doing. He wielded power over a huge number of subject citizens nonetheless.
But modern life doesn't allow for such grandiose visions. It's polluted by horrors such as people being melted down by radioactive explosions. MacArthur isn't really the stuff of dreams, and this comprehensive and readable book is wise not to attempt to portray him as such.
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