AsianAmericanBooks.com - AACP, Inc.
Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot
A Dual Biography
Home About Contact New Specials Browsing Ordering Conference Links Help
Search our site: Google

Check this out.

Book cover picture

Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot
A Dual Biography

By Frederick P. Close
2010, 522 pages, Hardback.



Book Description from Back Cover
About the Author

ORDER -- Item #3622, Price $49.95

Request More Information

Go to Browsing Page


Book Description from Back Cover

Tokyo Rose /An American Patriot: A Dual Biography explores the parallel lives of World War II legend Tokyo Rose and a Japanese American woman named Iva Toguri. Trapped in Tokyo during the war and forced to broadcast on Japanese radio, Toguri nonetheless refused to renounce her U.S. citizenship and surreptitiously aided Allied POWs. Despite these patriotic actions, she foolishly identified herself to the press after the war as Tokyo Rose. An examination of U.S.-monitored English-language radio transcripts from Japan between December 1941 and April 1942 shows only one innocuous broadcast by a female. Yet in April 1942, a news correspondent with the U.S. Navy reported that sailors in the Pacific theater routinely listened to Tokyo Rose's propaganda.

This book assembles a collection of images from American pre-war popular culture that provided impetus for the legend. Frederick Close analyzes the wartime situation of servicemen, which caused their imaginations to create the mythical femme fatale, even though no Japanese announcer ever used the name "Tokyo Rose." Including interviews conducted over decades, Close also explores Toguri's character and decisions by placing her story and conviction for treason in the context of U.S. and Japanese racial views. Imperial Japan, and Cold War politics. Recent discoveries provide a fresh perspective on her sensational trial, the most expensive in U.S. history up to that time. Misguided strategy by Toguri's defense attorney and her deceptive testimony about a key event led to the jury's verdict as surely as the perjury suborned by prosecutors.

Back to the Top


Background on Frederick P. Close

Frederick P. Close has produced 76 award-winning PBS documentaries highlighting the historical contributions of ethnic-American communities.

Back to the Top

Other Related Links

AACP Home Page
About | Contact | New | Specials | Browsing | Ordering | Conference | Links | Help
Copyright © 2010 by AACP, Inc.
Most recent revision November 8, 2010