Hirohito Michinomiya was born at the Aoyama Palace in Tokyo and received an education befitting a future emperor at the Peers' School and at the Crown Prince's Institute. A scholarly young man, Hirohito developed an intense interest in marine biology, a subject on which he became an internationally recognized authority and the author of a number of books in the field. Despite his sheltered upbringing, Hirohito was an urbane figure who became the first Japanese crown prince to travel abroad when he toured Europe in 1921. When he returned to Japan, he was named prince regent because his father, the emperor Taisho, suffering from mental illness, had stepped down from the throne. Hirohito married the princess Nagako Kuni in 1924 and, upon the death of his father, ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne of Imperial Japan on December 25, 1926.

The honorific name conferred on the reign of Hirohito was Shxwa, or "Enlightened Peace." This designation would prove supremely ironic, as Hirohito, head of the Japanese state, would bear personal responsibility for his nation's aggressive actions first against China and then, in World War II, against other subject peoples as well as the Allied nations. His ultimate responsibility notwithstanding, it is by no means certain just how to gauge Hirohito's actual role in the war. Most historians believe that Hirohito personally opposed going to war with the Allies and the United States in particular, but that his paradoxical position as an emperor of modern Japan, in principle absolute and supreme in his authority but in practice subject to the will of ministers, advisers, and the military, gave him little latitude in preventing the war. Yet even while conceding the precarious position Hirohito occupied, a significant number of historians suggest that Hirohito did, in fact, actively participate in planning for the expansion of the Japanese empire beginning as early as 1931. At the very least, he never acted to oppose the rise of right-wing militarists in the Japanese government, and his silence may (the historians argue) be taken as a token of his tacit approval.

While Hirohito reigned before and during World War II, he did not rule. Subject to the Meiji Constitution of 1889, his political and administrative prerogatives were limited, and most actual power was delegated to a variety of ministers. This notwithstanding, Hirohito was revered as a god on Earth, and he might well have brought moral pressure to bear in preventing the war. As it was, during the conflict, he made appearances among the troops astride a white horse and exhorted them to render the supreme effort in battle. Perhaps all that can be said for certain about Hirohito and World War II is that he could do little to counter the will of the militarists in the government, but he did not do even what little was available to him, and in his appearances before the troops, he was unambiguously martial. . .

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