Hirohito need not have heeded MacArthur, a foreign conqueror, who forbade him even to think of it.

ECONOMIST: A god dethroned

Was Hirohito a mere figurehead atop a powerful system of authoritarian rule, an imperial puppet manipulated by a military elite?

ECONOMIST: A god dethroned

For example, pictures of Hirohito in military uniform, as he was often portrayed during the war, are rarely seen in Japan.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Lesser Majesty

Could Hirohito have averted the reckless calamity of total war?

ECONOMIST: A god dethroned

The Constitution of Japan was promulgated and became effective on November 3, 1946, when it was signed by the Japanese Emperor Hirohito and all the ministers of government on that day.

FORBES: Limited Government, Reform, and the Japanese Constitution

Hirohito accepted a symbolic role in exchange for immunity.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Lesser Majesty

And as Hirohito was the only plausible candidate, he was repositioned as a concerned, avuncular figure, stripped of power and of military titles but endowed with the symbols of a head of state.

ECONOMIST: A god dethroned

Dower devotes considerable attention to Emperor Hirohito.

CNN: Books: The Reinventing of Japan

Despite this liberation the queen remains a passive figure, sought out only if there is a crisis in the Commonwealth, a row over royal finances or a controversial state occasion such as the visit of the much-reviled Japanese Emperor Hirohito in 1971.

WSJ: Her Maj: 60 Years of Unofficial Portraits of the Queen | Cartoon Museum | Too Gentle on the Queen? | By Richard Holledge

Published this week in the U.S. by Harper Collins (no one in Japan has yet agreed to translate and publish the work), Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan relies on diaries, memoirs and war-era documents that have been unearthed in Japan since the Emperor died in 1989.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Lesser Majesty