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Fernando Morais'Dirty Hearts is a tour de force of literary journalism that investigates the discriminatory treatment of the Japanese immigrant community in Brazil during World War II and in the aftermath of Japan's defeat and unconditional surrender. In contrast to the internment camps and compulsory military service that characterized the Japanese American wartime experience, this book traces the rise to power of Shindō Renmei, an ultranationalist secret society that formed in response to the anti-Japanese measures enacted under Getulio Vargas'Estado Novo. Based in São Paulo, the group used terrorism, propaganda campaigns, and conspiracy theories to violently enforce its narrative of Japan's victory. These traumatic events nevertheless brought about a permanent transformation in the Japanese Brazilian community from a largely insular colony with close ties to its imperial homeland to its new identity as an ethnic minority in postwar Brazil's fraught racial democracy.

第二次大戦後、連合国が日本の戦争責任を追及した「東京裁判」。膨大な被害を生んだ日本の戦争を、法廷はどのように裁いたのか。帝国主義・植民地主義・レイシズム（人種差別）といった発想と裁判審理との関わり、今日の歴史認識問題にもつながる戦争観を重視しつつ、膨大な史料を用いて裁判を再検証。不可視化された戦争被害の諸相に迫る。

A gripping account of the final American bombing mission of World War II and how it prevented a military coup that would have kept Japan in the war.How close did the Japanese come to not surrendering to Allied forces on August 15, 1945? The Last Mission explores this question through two previously neglected strands of late—World War II history, whose very interconnections could have caused a harrowing shift in the course of the postwar world. On the final night of the war, as Emperor Hirohito recorded a message of surrender for the Japanese people, a band of Japanese rebels, commanded by War Minister Anami's elite staff, burst into the palace. They had plotted a massive coup that aimed to destroy the recordings of the Imperial Rescript of surrender and issue false orders forged with the Emperor's seal commanding the widely dispersed Japanese military to continue the war. If this rebellion had succeeded, the military would have proceeded with large-scale kamikaze attacks on Allied forces, costing huge casualties and just possibly provoking the Americans to drop a third atomic bomb on Japan over Tokyo–and continue to drop more bombs as Japanese resistance stiffened.Meanwhile, in the midst of an “end-of-war” celebration on Guam, Air Force radio operator Jim Smith and his fellow crewmen received urgent orders for a bombing mission over Japan's sole remaining oil refinery north of Tokyo. As a stream of American B-29B bombers approached Tokyo, Japanese air defenses, fearing the approaching planes signaled the threat of a third atomic bomb, ordered a total blackout in Tokyo and the Imperial Palace, completely disrupting the rebels'plans. Smith and his fellow crewmembers completed the mission, and a few hours later, the Emperor announced the surrender over Japan's airwaves, dictating the end of the war.The Last Mission is an insightful piece of speculative investigation that combines narrative storytelling with historical contingency and explores how two seemingly unrelated events could have profoundly changed the course of modern history.