Yuma Totani

Accepting new graduate students? Yes

Background

I am a humanities scholar with areas of specialization in the history of modern Japan and post-World War II war crimes trials that the Allied Powers held against the Japanese in the Asia-Pacific region (1945-1952). My professional mission is to undertake a series of multi-year research and book publications that aim at illuminating the causes, circumstances, and consequences of Japanese war and war crimes, and considering the significance of our historical knowledge of World War II for strengthening the principle of international justice in the twenty-first century. I offer courses on the history of modern Japan, World War II in Asia and the Pacific, and international criminal justice. I earned my B.A. in History of Art from International Christian University (Tokyo, Japan), M.S. in Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley. I taught at the Department of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for two years before joining in 2008 the Department of History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Representative Publications

• Totani, Yuma, and David Cohen. Jisshō kenkyū Tōkyō saiban: Hikoku no sekinin wa ika ni towaretaka (An empirical study of the Tokyo Trial: How the accused were held to account). Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 2023.
• Cohen, David, and Yuma Totani. Tōkyō saiban “shinwa” no kaitai: Paru, Rērinku, Uebu san-hanji no sōkoku (The deconstruction of the Tokyo Trial ‘myths’: Battles among three justices, Pal, Roeling, and Webb). Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 2018.
• Cohen, David, and Yuma Totani. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal: Law, History, and Jurisprudence. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Totani, Yuma. Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945-1952: Allied War Crimes Prosecutions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
• __________. trans. Futashikana seigi: BC-kyū senpan saiban no kiseki. Japanese-language edition of Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945-1952. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2015.
• __________. The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008; paperback edition, 2009.
• __________, trans. Tōkyō saiban: dai niji taisen go no hō to seigi no tsuikyū. Expanded Japanese-language edition of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 2008. Reprint with a new epilogue by the author, 2018. 
  • *A simplified Chinese edition is available as Donjing shenpan: di’erci shijie dazhan hou diu fa yu zhengyi de zhuiqiu. Translated by Zhao Yuhui. With a new preface by the author. Shanghai: Shanghai jiaotong daxue chubanshe, 2016.