Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

In 1946, as Japan stood in ruins at the end of World War II, an international war crimes trial was launched in

Tokyo. It was a mammoth legal and political undertaking, as top Japanese leaders were tried by a panel

of 11 international judges. To find out more, I spoke to Gary Bass, the author of Judgment at Tokyo, a new book on the trial

which has just been shortlisted for the Kundal History Prize, of which we are a media partner.

And as Gary revealed, it wasn't just the fate of the defendants that were on the line in

1946, but also Japan's reputation on the global stage.

Thank you so much for joining me, Gary.

Your new book looks at the Tokyo trials of 1946 to 48,

in which top Japanese leaders and military figures

were put on trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity,

and crimes against peace, perpetrated in the years

leading up to and during the Second World War. Before we look at the trials themselves,

what kind of atrocities were under examination here? So this is a very big war crimes trial. It is the

Asian equivalent to Nuremberg. And like the

Nuremberg trial, it's looking at a wide range of war crimes, the most important of which

is aggressive war, is starting the war itself. So Japanese are being put on trial for the attack

on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, as well as the simultaneous attacks on the British Empire, on the Dutch Empire.

So that's the sort of foundational crime.

But there's also all the atrocities that went with the rest of the war, everything from the Baton Death March of American and Filipino prisoners of war on the

baton peninsula in the early stages of the war, captive Australians who are worked to death,

building a railway from Burma through Thailand, mass rape in the Battle of Manila, and

...