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Enigma of the Emperors: Sacred Subservience in Japanese History, by Ben-Ami Shillony Global Oriental, 2005, ISBN 1-901903-34-6, 312 pages (including index and bibliography), £45. Review by Stephen S. Large (University of Cambridge) With the publication of this book, we now have an authoritative survey of the Japanese emperors from antiquity to the present. The "enigma" at hand is how best to explain the continuous existence of the imperial institution and the same dynastic family for fifteen centuries, by Professor Shillony's reckoning. (By a somewhat different calculation, starting from the mythical Jinmu, the present emperor, Akihito, is the 125th occupant of the throne.) It is often claimed that the monarchy has survived so long because the emperors were considered sacred or divine. Another common explanation is that it survived because the emperors were too weak politically to threaten other elites in the struggle for power. If neither of these explanations by itself is very compelling, the combination of imperial sanctity and political weakness may well explain the striking continuity of the imperial house. Shillony concludes, near the end of his book: "The reason for this strange survival, like the reason for the extraordinary longevity of the dynasty, is that unlike other monarchs, the Japanese emperors combined sanctity with passivity to such an extent, that they were too subservient to rule, but too sacred to be deposed" (p. 273). Shillony develops this theme of "sacred subservience" in twenty-eight concise chapters grouped into nine sections. Throughout, his lively narrative is packed with detailed information about the emperors; for instance, "From [Empress] Kôgyoku's resignation in 645 until the last abdication of Emperor Kôkaku in 1817, three-quarters of all emperors resigned the throne" (p. 49). Along the way Shillony carefully explains the origins and meanings of key terms relating to the imperial institution and draws useful comparisons with the Chinese monarchy and monarchies in the Middle East and Europe. But what makes this book especially valuable is the author's perspectives on the Japanese emperors as viewed through the prisms of authority, gender, and sanctity. To illustrate, concerning the nature of imperial sanctity, Shillony argues that the Japanese have not typically regarded the reigning emperors as gods. Like the pharaohs, the emperors were held to be descendants of the sun deity, but the emperors "were neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and they were not worshipped. In Japan there were no shrines dedicated to living emperors. The emperors prayed to the gods on behalf of the people but the people did not pray to them. The souls of dead emperors were worshipped, but so were the souls of other persons" (p. 17). Even in the Nara and Heian periods, "the classical age of imperial rule," the emperors were not believed to be divine, and ancient imperial titles such as akitsu mikami (manifest god) remained merely "poetic honorifics rather than religious statements" (p. 19). It was probably only in the nineteenth century that the idea arose, in nationalist political thought, of the emperor as a "living god." It seems unlikely, though, that many Japanese actually came to believe this, even during World War II when the emperor cult reached its zenith. For the Japanese, Emperor Hirohito's public renunciation of his divinity, at MacArthur's behest in 1946, was a nonevent. But while the emperors were not widely seen as "living gods" down through the ages, they were generally believed to be sacred, by virtue of the divine mythological origins of the imperial family and the Shinto rites that the emperors performed at court as intermediaries between their subjects and the gods. Hirohito continued to offer these prayers for a good harvest and for the security of the realm after the war- as does the reigning emperor today-although under the postwar separation of church and state, these are considered strictly private rites of the imperial family. Concerning the extent of the emperors' authority, the few emperors and empresses earlier on who exercised significant political power or military leadership were exceptions which prove the rule that the great majority of sovereigns were politically passive. Many emperors were best known for their artistic pursuits. As Shillony makes clear, their main role, drawing upon their sacred nature in the above sense, was to symbolize the collective identity of the Japanese people and confer legitimacy upon the secular power of other elites who ruled in the emperor's name, for example the Fujiwara family at the Heian court, or the shoguns whose governments later held sway until the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Perhaps the most dramatic instance in which an emperor tried boldly to retrieve power was Go-Daigô's ill-fated Kenmu Restoration in the fourteenth century. The only shogun who seriously eyed the throne for himself was Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, later in the same century. Shillony comments, "It is significant that Yoshimitsu's ambition was thwarted neither by an emperor nor by a rival warrior, but by the consensus that such things were not done" (p. 84). The "restoration of imperial rule" in 1868 reflected admiration for the classical Chinese model of monarchy in which the emperor governed the country as the source of moral authority. Moreover, the 1889 constitution invested the emperor with vast prerogatives as the head of state and supreme commander of the armed forces. Yet, it was never intended that Emperor Meiji and his successors, Emperors Taishô and Shôwa (Hirohito), would rule in their own right, for in practice their powers were delegated to other political and military elites who governed in their name. Thus, Japan's modern emperors continued to perform the same key functions that had defined the pattern of "sacred subservience" in the past. On the one hand, they symbolized the ethnic identity of the Japanese people, and now also the modern Japanese state. On the other hand, they legitimized the government and its policies, whether or not they personally agreed with those policies. In this last regard, Shillony rightly rejects the shaky claim, popularized by Herbert Bix in his book Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), that Hirohito actively directed Japan's wars in the 1931-1945 period. He also points out that "Curiously, Bix seems to embrace the theory of the prewar nationalists that the emperor was the main mover of modern Japanese history, but whereas the Japanese nationalists credited the emperor with all the successes, Bix blames him for all the failures" (p. 192). Nevertheless, Shillony holds that Japan's defeat in 1945 "should have led to the emperor's abdication. . . . The Imperial House Law made no provision for abdication, but it did not rule it out either" (p. 217). That the Americans prevented Hirohito from abdicating because they wanted him to legitimize the reforms of the Occupation made him "the only head of state in modern times who stayed in office after his country's defeat" (p. 218). His retention on the throne guaranteed that he would always be a contested "symbol emperor" after the 1947 Constitution stripped the emperor of his former prerogatives and status as head of state and supreme commander. By contrast, Emperor Akihito seems more comfortable in the rather ambiguous role of "symbol emperor." Shillony's perspectives through the prism of gender are equally perceptive. He shows, for instance, that some of Japan's most intriguing and assertive monarchs were women. Among these was Suiko who, according to the Kojiki and Nihon shoki chronicles, was Japan's first reigning empress (from 593 to 628) and the first to adopt the title of tennô ("heavenly sovereign," tianhuang in Chinese), to underscore Japan's equality with China (pp. 39-43). Other formidable empresses included Jitô (r. 686-697) and Genmei (r. 707-715). Jitô's reign saw the construction of the first Chinese-style capital, Fujiwara-kyô, and Genmei's that of the second, Heijô-kyô at Nara. Indeed, "The Nara period, extending over most of the eighth century, was the zenith of female monarchy in Japan" (p. 51). Elsewhere, Shillony discusses the deliberate attempts to masculinize Emperor Meiji's public image as Japan embarked upon the pursuit of industry and empire. Similarly, Hirohito's public image was feminized after World War II so that he could better symbolize a peaceful "New Japan." Although not original, these are helpful insights into the changing representation of Japan's modern emperors. Shillony also discusses the violent eroticism in some postwar literary portrayals of the monarchy, but this literature scarcely reflects how most Japanese view the monarchy and the imperial family. Looking ahead, Shillony speculates that only by enabling women to ascend the throne can the future continuation of the monarchy be ensured, given the widely publicized failure of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako to produce a male heir to the throne. Another issue is how to make the monarchy more relevant to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Shillony's proposed solution is appealing: let the emperor or empress serve as a "Green Tennô," the guardian of the natural environment (p. 277). For a different review of this book see: Review This review originally appeared in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 61, Number 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 105-107.

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