Virtual Book Talk: The "Rape" of Japan, The Myth of Mass Sexual Violence During the Allied Occupation
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Dr. Walsh will discuss the primary sources he used in debunking this longstanding myth regarding sexual violence by American occupation forces in Japan from 1945-1951 and his conclusions about the truth behind this largely accepted fiction.
On Thursday, July 23, 2026 at 7:00 pm EST, the MacArthur Memorial will present a free virtual lecture by Dr. Brian Walsh on his recent publication, The “Rape” of Japan: The Myth of Mass Sexual Violence During the Allied Occupation (2024).
Dr. Walsh will discuss the primary sources he used in debunking this longstanding myth regarding sexual violence by American occupation forces in Japan from 1945-1951 and his conclusions about the truth behind this largely accepted fiction. An audience Q&A will follow this presentation.
Brian P. Walsh has lived, worked, and studied in Japan for eighteen years. He received a master’s degree in Japanese Studies from the University of Washington in 2003 and a Ph.D. in modern Japanese history in 2016. His major areas of study are US-Japanese relations in the 1940s and 1950s and problems surrounding the development of a new postwar Japanese national identity. He has published articles in the Journal of Military History, the Journal of American-East Asian Relations, and the Pacific Historical Review. He supervised his wife Ayumi’s Japanese translation of Richard B. Frank’s biography of Douglas MacArthur. At present, he is at work on a project about the end of the Asia-Pacific War and the myths that have developed in both Japan and the United States about that subject. He teaches Japanese history and international relations at Kwansei Gakuin University in Nishinomiya, Japan.