The Wages of Guilt

US: Plume, 1994. Paperback. Fair. The Wages of Guilt is a major work of cultural history, and one that only I an Buruma could have written. Buruma is perhaps the West's leading commenta tor about Asian politics and culture, and he has a deep familiarity with Eu rope as well. His subject in this book is the legacy of World War II and th e complicated and very different ways Germany and Japan have dealt with it. He contrasts the official propaganda in the former East Germany with West German efforts to come to terms with the Holocaust. In Japan, he looks into the polarized debate between those who wish to whitewash and forget and th ose who use Hiroshima and the Japanese atrocities in Asia to warn against r esurgent militarism. In a mixture of essay and reportage, he paints a compl ex and provocative picture of East and West under the shadow of the Cold Wa r. In the course of his investigation, he visits memorial sites, talks to p oliticians, intellectuals, and people in the streets, and analyzes the work of journalists, artists, and historians. Buruma's lively and comprehensive account of our two major allies and their diverging approaches to their ow n pasts illuminates profound questions of moral responsibility and national identity.