A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
A groundbreaking history that considers the attack on Pearl Harbor
from the Japanese perspective and is certain to revolutionize how
we think of the war in the Pacific.
When Japan launched hostilities against the United States in 1941,
argues Eri Hotta, its leaders, in large part, understood they were
entering a war they were almost certain to lose. Drawing on
material little known to Western readers, and barely explored in
depth in Japan itself, Hotta poses an essential question: Why did
these men--military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the
emperor--put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in
harm's way? Introducing us to the doubters, schemers, and would-be
patriots who led their nation into this conflagration, Hotta
brilliantly shows us a Japan rarely glimpsed--eager to avoid war
but fraught with tensions with the West, blinded by reckless
militarism couched in traditional notions of pride and honor,
tempted by the gambler's dream of scoring the biggest win against
impossible odds and nearly escaping disaster before it finally
proved inevitable.
In an intimate account of the increasingly heated debates and
doomed diplomatic overtures preceding Pearl Harbor, Hotta reveals
just how divided Japan's leaders were, right up to (and, in fact,
beyond) their eleventh-hour decision to attack. We see a ruling
cadre rich in regional ambition and hubris: many of the same
leaders seeking to avoid war with the United States continued to
adamantly advocate Asian expansionism, hoping to advance, or at
least maintain, the occupation of China that began in 1931, unable
to end the second Sino-Japanese War and unwilling to acknowledge
Washington's hardening disapproval of their continental incursions.
Even as Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the
Roosevelt administration, Matsuoka Yosuke, the egomaniacal foreign
minister who relished paying court to both Stalin and Hitler, and
his facile supporters cemented Japan's place in the fascist
alliance with Germany and Italy--unaware (or unconcerned) that in
so doing they destroyed the nation's bona fides with the West.
We see a dysfunctional political system in which military leaders
reported to both the civilian government and the emperor, creating
a structure that facilitated intrigues and stoked a jingoistic
rivalry between Japan's army and navy. Roles are recast and blame
reexamined as Hotta analyzes the actions and motivations of the
hawks and skeptics among Japan's elite. Emperor Hirohito and
General Hideki Tojo are newly appraised as we discover how the two
men fumbled for a way to avoid war before finally acceding to it.
Hotta peels back seventy years of historical mythologizing--both
Japanese and Western--to expose all-too-human Japanese leaders torn
by doubt in the months preceding the attack, more concerned with
saving face than saving lives, finally drawn into war as much by
incompetence and lack of political will as by bellicosity. An
essential book for any student of the Second World War, this
compelling reassessment will forever change the way we remember
those days of infamy.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
