John W. Dower, author of Embracing Defeat (3/22/99), is the Elting E. Morison Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the author of many books and articles on modern Japanese history and U.S.-Japan relations. His 1986 book War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War was honored with many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. Other books include Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954, Japan in War and Peace, The Elements of Japanese Design, A Century of Japanese Photography and The Hiroshima Murals (with John Junkerman).

Professor Dower received his B.A. in American Studies from Amherst college and his PhD. in History and Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University. He has taught history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and was the Joseph Naiman Professor of History and Japanese Studies at the University of California, San Diego from 1986-1991. Embracing Defeat was named as a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award.

--photo credit: Mark Ostow