Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan - Spector, Ronald H. Review & Synopsis

 Synopsis

Traces the war in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and examines the major battles and campaigns

Review

"Spector has done the impossible and done it ,with dazzling brilliance. Mining a warehouse of material with absolute control, he has produced a superbly readable, insightful, gripping, unbiased one-volume history of the American-Japanese war that is at the same time a glorious celebration of the American spirit."

-- Clay Blair. front page. The Washington Post Book World

"The best one-volume history of that complex conflict... No other presents as balanced a view or provides such terse and searching analyses not only of the great battles but of half-forgotten aspects, such as the impact of blacks and female participants on the services...No future book on the Pacific war will be written without paying due tribute to Eagle Against The Sun."

-- Drew Middleton, The New York Times

"Clear, coherent, effective...this is an excellent book... likely to be for a long time to come the standard, comprehensive history of the Pacific Ocean War." -- Russell E Weighley, Temple University.

Only now can the full scope of the war in the Pacific be fully understood. Historian Ronald Spector, drawing on newly declassified intelligence files, an abundance of British and American archival material. Japanese scholarship and documents, and research and memoirs of scholarly and military men, has written a stunning, complete and up-to-date history of the conflict.

Eagle Against the Sun

“The best book by far on the Pacific War” (The New York Times Book Review), this classic one-volume history of World War II in the Pacific draws on declassified intelligence files; British, American, and Japanese archival material; and military memoirs to provide a stunning and complete history of the conflict. This “superbly readable, insightful, gripping” (Washington Post Book World) contribution to WWII history combines impeccable research with electrifying detail and offers provocative interpretations of this brutal forty-four-month struggle. Author and historian Ronald H. Spector reassesses US and Japanese strategy and shows that the dual advance across the Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz was more a pragmatic solution to bureaucratic, doctrinal, and public relations problems facing the Army and Navy than a strategic calculation. He also argues that Japan made its fatal error not in the Midway campaign but in abandoning its offensive strategy after that defeat and allowing itself to be drawn into a war of attrition. Spector skillfully takes us from top-secret strategy meetings in Washington, London, and Tokyo to distant beaches and remote Asian jungles with battle-weary GIs. He reveals that the US had secret plans to wage unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan months before Pearl Harbor and shows that MacArthur and his commanders ignored important intercepts of Japanese messages that would have saved thousands of lives in Papua and Leyte. Throughout, Spector contends that American decisions in the Pacific War were shaped more often by the struggles between the British and the Americans, and between the Army and the Navy, than by strategic considerations. Spector vividly recreates the major battles, little-known campaigns, and unfamiliar events leading up to the deadliest air raid ever, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the American war in the Pacific and the people and forces that determined its outcome.

“The best book by far on the Pacific War” (The New York Times Book Review), this classic one-volume history of World War II in the Pacific draws on declassified intelligence files; British, American, and Japanese archival material; and ..."

In the Ruins of Empire

The New York Times said of Ronald H. Spector’s classic account of the American struggle against the Japanese in World War II, “No future book on the Pacific War will be written without paying due tribute to Eagle Against the Sun.” Now Spector has returned with a book that is even more revealing. In the Ruins of Empire chronicles the startling aftermath of this crucial twentieth-century conflict. With access to recently available firsthand accounts by Chinese, Japanese, British, and American witnesses and previously top secret U.S. intelligence records, Spector tells for the first time the fascinating story of the deadly confrontations that broke out–or merely continued–in Asia after peace was proclaimed at the end of World War II. Under occupation by the victorious Allies, this part of the world was plunged into new power struggles or back into old feuds that in some ways were worse than the war itself. In the Ruins of Empire also shows how the U.S. and Soviet governments, as they secretly vied for influence in liberated lands, were soon at odds. At the time of the peace declaration, international suspicions were still strong. Joseph Stalin warned that “crazy cutthroats” might disrupt the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay. Die-hard Japanese officers plotted to seize the emperor’s palace to prevent an announcement of surrender, and clandestine relief forces were sent to rescue thousands of Allied POWs to prevent their being massacred. In the Ruins of Empire paints a vivid picture of the postwar intrigues and violence. In Manchuria, Russian “liberators” looted, raped, and killed innocent civilians, and a fratricidal rivalry continued between Chiang Kai-shek’s regime and Mao’s revolutionaries. Communist resistance forces in Malaya settled old scores and terrorized the indigenous population, while mujahideen holy warriors staged reprisals and terror killings against the Chinese–hundreds of innocent civilians were killed on both sides. In Indochina, a nativist political movement rose up to oppose the resumption of French colonial rule; one of the factions that struggled for supremacy was the Communist Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh. Korea became a powder keg with the Russians and Americans entangled in its north and south. And in Java, as the Indonesian novelist Idrus wrote, people brutalized by years of Japanese occupation “worshipped a new God in the form of bombs, submachine guns, and mortars.” Through impeccable research and provocative analysis, as well as compelling accounts of American, British, Indian, and Australian soldiers charged with overseeing the surrender and repatriation of millions of Japanese in the heart of dangerous territory, Spector casts new and startling light on this pivotal time–and sets the record straight about this contested and important period in history.

With access to recently available firsthand accounts by Chinese, Japanese, British, and American witnesses and previously top secret U.S. intelligence records, Spector tells for the first time the fascinating story of the deadly ..."

At War at Sea

Drawing from more than 100 diaries, memoirs, letters, and interviews, this book is a masterful narrative of the human side of combat at sea--real stories told from the point of view of the sailors themselves. of photos. 10 maps.

Drawing from more than 100 diaries, memoirs, letters, and interviews, this book is a masterful narrative of the human side of combat at sea--real stories told from the point of view of the sailors themselves. of photos. 10 maps."

Uniquely Okinawan

Uniquely Okinawan explores how American soldiers, sailors, and Marines considered race, ethnicity, and identity in the planning and execution of the wartime occupation of Okinawa, during and immediately after the Battle of Okinawa, 1945–46.

Introduction 1. Ronald H . Spector , Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), 9. 2. Spector , Eagle against the Sun , 20–21, 35–36; Mark E. Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, ..."

Rising Sun Victorious

Here is a sideways look at World War II in the Pacific, which gives an exciting view of how the Japanese could have won. Expert military historians examine what would have happened if, for example if the Japanese had conquered India and knocked Britain out of the Pacific War; More...or if Japanese landings in Australia had severed the strategic link between the US and its Southwest Pacific base. The authors, writing as if these world-changing events had really happened, project realistic possibilities based on the true capabilities and circumstances of the forces involved. Rising Sun Victorious is essential and stimulating reading for anyone interested in how chances of history affected the outcome of World War II. Scenarios include: Pearl Harbor: Irredeemable Defeat, by Frank Shirer; The Coral Sea Runs Purple: The Japanese Codes are Cracked, by James Arnold; Nagumo's Luck: The Japanese Find The US Navy First at Midway, by Rick Lindsey; Australian Conquest, by John H. Gill; Guadalcanal Evacuation, by John Burtt; and Victory Rides the Wind: The Kamikaze Prevents Defeat at Kyushu, by Dennis Giangreco.

The Alternate History of how the Japanese Won the Pacific War Peter Tsouras. Bibliography Cannon , M. Hamlin , Leyte ... Spector , Ronald H . , Eagle Against the Sun : The American War Against Japan ( Free Press , New York , 1985 ) ."

Military Logistics and Strategic Performance

This work argues that logistics in warfare is crucial to achieving strategic success. The author identifies logistical capabilities as an arbiter of opportunity, which plays a critical role in determining which side will hold the strategic iniative in war. Armies which have secured reliable resources of supply have a great advantage in determining the time and manner in which engagements take place. Often, they can fight in ways their opponents cannot. The author illustrates this point with case studies of British logistics during the Burma campaign in the World War II, American logistical innovations during the Pacific War, Communist supply methods during the American phase of the Vietnam War and the competing logistical systems of both NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional forces during the Cold War.

 Japan's Decision For War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967), p. 247. . Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan (New York: The Free Press, 1985), p. 44."

The Foundation of the CIA

This highly accessible book provides new material and a fresh perspective on American National Intelligence practice, focusing on the first fifty years of the twentieth century, when the United States took on the responsibilities of a global superpower during the first years of the Cold War. Late to the art of intelligence, the United States during World War II created a new model of combining intelligence collection and analytic functions into a single organization—the OSS. At the end of the war, President Harry Truman and a small group of advisors developed a new, centralized agency directly subordinate to and responsible to the President, despite entrenched institutional resistance. Instrumental to the creation of the CIA was a group known colloquially as the “Missouri Gang,” which included not only President Truman but equally determined fellow Missourians Clark Clifford, Sidney Souers, and Roscoe Hillenkoetter.

... https://www.history.navy.mil/research /histories/ship-histories/danfs.html; and Vice Admiral Roscoe H . Hillenkoetter Biography; and Ronald H . Spector , Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Vintage Books, ..."

The American Experience in World War II: The atomic bomb in history and memory

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Eichelberger ) would conduct a clinic in amphibious warfare for the Japanese . " Similarly , Ronald H . ... Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun : The American War with Japan ( New York : Free Press , 1985 ) , 513-14 and passim ."

Joint Force Quarterly

Seemingly all decisions the Joint Chiefs made had to be weighed foremost against the consequences of offending either a ... 6 Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun : The American War with Japan ( New York : Free Press , 1985 ) ..."

U.S. Navy Codebreakers, Linguists, and Intelligence Officers against Japan, 1910-1941

This unique reference presents 59 biographies of people who were key to the sea services being reasonably prepared to fight the Japanese Empire when the Second World War broke out, and whose advanced work proved crucial. These intelligence pioneers invented techniques, procedures, and equipment from scratch, not only allowing the United States to hold its own in the Pacific despite the loss of most of its Fleet at Pearl Harbor, but also laying the foundation of today’s intelligence methods and agencies.

Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1976. Spector , Ronald H . Eagle against the Sun: The American War against Japan . New York: Free Press, 1985. Spector , Ronald H ., ed. Listening to the Enemy: Key Documents on the Role of Communications ..."

Prompt and Utter Destruction

In this concise account of why America used atomic bombs against Japan in 1945, J. Samuel Walker analyzes the reasons behind President Truman's most controversial decision. He delineates what was known and not known by American leaders at the time and evaluates the role of U.S.-Soviet relations and American domestic politics. In this new edition, Walker takes into account recent scholarship on the topic, including new information on the Japanese decision to surrender. He has revised the book to place more emphasis on the effect of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in convincing the emperor and his advisers to quit the war. Rising above an often polemical debate, Walker presents an accessible synthesis of previous work and an important, original contribution to our understanding of the events that ushered in the atomic age.

Meirion Harries and Susie Harries , Soldiers of the Sun : The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army ( New York : Random House , 1991 ) , 440 . 6. Ronald H . Spector , Eagle against the Sun : The American War with Japan ( New York ..."

The Japanese Empire Disaster

The book demonstrates that, even if during the first period of the Shwa era (1931–1945) the real driving force to war was the Japanese military, Hirohito, as supreme commander, gave full support to the army. On multiple occasions, as an emperor, he sanctioned many government policies. Accordingly, he was responsible for the war and for the atrocities that the Japanese troops committed in Asia during the Pacific War. Japan’s Empire Disaster is a book of information and training; a reference document that should be read as an educational tool on the history of the modernization of Japan and the war launched by Emperor Meiji and Hirohito to build Japan Empire in the Pacific and East Asia. The book shares the view of the author on Hirohito’s responsibility on the events that marked Japan’s entry into the war that began when Japanese troops invaded Manchuria on September 19, 1931, and culminated with Japan’s surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

Russel, Edward F.L. The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes. London, Cassell, 1958. Saburo, Ienaga. ... Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan . ... Spector , Ronald H . Eagle against the Sun ."

Indomitable Will

Some of the worst military disasters in U.S. history occurred between Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the Battle of Midway in June 1942. During this period, the American people faced a barrage of bad news and accounts of defeats and retreats. Yet if they were shocked and dismayed, they showed little panic. Indomitable Will resurrects the legacy of this first half-year of American combat during WWII -a legacy of pain, but not of woe. Historian Charles Kupfer recounts the story of the war's early defeats: Bataan, Corregidor, Wake Island, and the Java Sea. Some of these battles remain evocative today; others are obscure; all were catastrophes for American arms. Kupfer asserts, however, that later victories were made inevitable by the steeling effect of those initial disasters. Weaving together military, journalistic, political, and cultural histories, this engaging book shows that by setting their collective will on victory, Americans in and out of uniform gained strength from their setbacks. Indomitable Will spells out how the nation turned early defeat into ultimate victory.

LaFeber, U.S.– Japanese Relations ThroughoutHistory, 209–10. Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), 267–9. Spector , Eagle Against the Sun , 271. Ibid., 270–1."

One Hundred Years of Sea Power

A navy is a state's main instrument of maritime force. What it should do, what doctrine it holds, what ships it deploys, and how it fights are determined by practical political and military choices in relation to national needs. Choices are made according to the state's goals, perceived threat, maritime opportunity, technological capabilities, practical experience, and, not the least, the way the sea service defines itself and its way of war. This book is a history of the modern U.S. Navy. It explains how the Navy, in the century after 1890, was formed and reformed in the interaction of purpose, experience, and doctrine.

13-14 ; Barnhart , Japan Prepares for Total War , p . ... J. E. Talbott , " Weapons Development , War Planning and Policy : The U.S. Navy and the Submarine , 1917-1941 , " Naval War ... Quoted in Ronald Spector , Eagle Against the Sun ..."

West Point History of World War II

Reader's Digest Endowed Book Fund.

For incisive criticism of the U.S. war in the Pacific, see Ronald H . Spector , The Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), 184–219. No one knows the documents in greater detail, ..."

King of Battle

the Japanese hold on the Solomons and the Bismarcks , the Army and the Navy planned an offensive against Rabaul ... Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun : The American War with Japan ( New York : The Free Press , 1985 ) , p . 197 ."

The War Against Japan, 1941-1945

With over 5,200 entries, this volume remains one of the most extensive annotated bibliographies on the USA’s fight against Japan in the Second World War. Including books, articles, and de-classified documents up to the end of 1987, the book is organized into six categories: Part 1 presents reference works, including encyclopedias, pictorial accounts, military histories, East Asian histories, hisotoriographies. Part 2 covers diplomatic-political aspects of the war against Japan. Part 3 contains sources on the economic and legal aspects of the war against Japan. Part 4 presents sources on the military apsects of the war – embracing land, air and sea forces. Religious aspects of the war are covered in Part 5 and Part 6 deals with the social and cultural aspects, including substantial sections on the treatment of Japanese minorities in the USA, Hawaii, Canada and Peru.

History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II: Central Pacific Drive. Washington, D.C.: USMC, 1966. 685 pp. ... Spector , Ronald H . Eagle Against The Sun: The American War With Japan . New York: Free Press, 1985. 589 pp."

The Enola Gay and the Smithsonian Institution

On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, which ushered on the end of World War II. For the 50th anniversary of this major event in world history, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution produced an exhibit. A controversy erupted, however, over the exhibit's historical authenticity. Veterans, for example, complained that the museum displayed a misrepresented version of history. After concisely covering the background of the Enola Gay and its mission, this study focuses on the controversy surrounding the museum exhibit. Issues covered include casualty figures, ethical questions, and political correctness, among others. The viewpoints of such groups as museum personnel, exhibit organizers, veterans, and historians are covered. Appendices offer information on content analysis of the National Air and Space Museum exhibit script, non-museum materials that were intended to complement the exhibit script, and the importance of full disclosure in research.

 Spector , Ronald H . Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan . New York: The Free Press, ¡985. Spector , Ronald H ., ed. Listening to the Enemy: Key Documents on the Role of Communications Intelligence in the War with Japan ."

The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb

Few aspects of American military history have been as vigorously debated as Harry Truman's decision to use atomic bombs against Japan. In this carefully crafted volume, Michael Kort describes the wartime circumstances and thinking that form the context for the decision to use these weapons, surveys the major debates related to that decision, and provides a comprehensive collection of key primary source documents that illuminate the behavior of the United States and Japan during the closing days of World War II. Kort opens with a summary of the debate over Hiroshima as it has evolved since 1945. He then provides a historical overview of thye events in question, beginning with the decision and program to build the atomic bomb. Detailing the sequence of events leading to Japan's surrender, he revisits the decisive battles of the Pacific War and the motivations of American and Japanese leaders. Finally, Kort examines ten key issues in the discussion of Hiroshima and guides readers to relevant primary source documents, scholarly books, and articles.

The most comprehensive overview of the Japanese effort is John W. Dower, “'NI' and 'F': Japan's Wartime Atomic Bomb ... of that struggle: Ronald H . Spector , The Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Macmillan, ..."

Beyond Pearl Harbor

In the United States, December 7, 1941, may live in infamy, in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase, but for most Americans the date’s significance begins and ends with the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 8 (December 7 on the other side of the International Date Line) Japanese military forces hit eight major targets, all but one on western colonial possessions and military outposts in the Pacific: Kota Bharu on the northeast coast of Malaya (now Malaysia); Thailand, the one site not claimed by a western power; Pearl Harbor, O’ahu; Singapore, key to the defense of Britain’s Asian empire; Guam, the only island in the Mariana chain not controlled by Japan; Wake Island; Hong Kong; and the Philippines. Told from multiple perspectives, the stories of these attacks reveal the arc of imperialism, colonialism, and burgeoning nationalism in the Pacific world. In Beyond Pearl Harbor renowned scholars hailing from four continents and representing six nations reinterpret the meaning of the coordinated, and devastating, attacks of December 7/8, 1941. Working from a variety of angles, they revise and expand, to an unprecedented extent, what we understand about these events—in particular, how Japan’s overwhelming, if short-lived, victories contributed to emerging solidarities and nationalist identities within and across Pacific societies. In their essays we see how various elite actors incorporated the attacks into new regimes of knowledge and expertise that challenged and displaced existing hierarchies. Extending far beyond Pearl Harbor, the events of December 1941, as we see in this volume, are part of a story of clashing empires and anti-colonial visions—a story whose outcome, even now, remains to be seen.

 Ronald H . Spector , Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Vin- tage Books, 1985), 1–7, 78–84. 4. Thomas Wilds, “The Japanese Seizure of Guam,” Marine Corps Gazette (July 1955), ..."

The Second World War

In this comprehensive history, John Keegan explores both the technical and the human impact of the greatest war of all time. He focuses on five crucial battles and offers new insights into the distinctive methods and motivations of modern warfare. In knowledgable, perceptive analysis of the airborne battle of Crete, the carrier battle of Midway, the tank battle of Falaise, the city battle of Berlin, and the amphibious battle of Okinawa, Keegan illuminates the strategic dilemmas faced by the leaders and the consequences of their decisions on the fighting men and the course of the war as a whole.

In this comprehensive history, John Keegan explores both the technical and the human impact of the greatest war of all time."

The Prize

Deemed "the best history of oil ever written" by Business Week and with more than 300,000 copies in print, Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the global pursuit of oil, money, and power has been extensively updated to address the current energy crisis.

... Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Vintage, 1985), pp. 418 (FDR), 146 (Nimitz). Spector is an excellent source on the Pacific War. E. B. Potter, Nimitz (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, ..."

A Companion to American Military History

With more than 60 essays, A Companion to American MilitaryHistory presents a comprehensive analysis of the historiographyof United States military history from the colonial era to thepresent. Covers the entire spectrum of US history from the Indian andimperial conflicts of the seventeenth century to the battles inAfghanistan and Iraq Features an unprecedented breadth of coverage from eminentmilitary historians and emerging scholars, including little studiedtopics such as the military and music, military ethics, care of thedead, and sports Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every importantera and topic Summarizes current debates and identifies areas whereconflicting interpretations are in need of further study

 Spector , Ronald H . (1985). Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan . New York: Free Press. Spector , Ronald H . (1988). Listening to the Enemy: Key Documents on the Role of Communications Intelligence in the War with Japan ."

Surface and Destroy

World War II submariners rarely experienced anything as exhilarating or horrifying as the surface gun attack. Between the ocean floor and the rolling whitecaps above, submarines patrolled a dark abyss in a fusion of silence, shadows, and steel, firing around eleven thousand torpedoes, sinking Japanese men-of-war and more than one thousand merchant ships. But the anonymity and simplicity of the stealthy torpedo attack hid the savagery of warfare -- a stark difference from the brutality of the surface gun maneuver. As the submarine shot through the surface of the water, confined sailors scrambled through the hatches armed with large-caliber guns and met the enemy face-to-face. Surface and Destroy: The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific reveals the nature of submarine warfare in the Pacific Ocean during World War II and investigates the challenges of facing the enemy on the surface. The surface battle amplified the realities of war, bringing submariners into close contact with survivors and potential prisoners of war. As Japan's larger ships disappeared from the Pacific theater, American submarines turned their attention to smaller craft such as patrol boats, schooners, sampans, and junks. Some officers refused to attack enemy vessels of questionable value, while others attacked reluctantly and tried to minimize casualties. Michael Sturma focuses on the submariners' reactions and attitudes toward their victims, exploring the sailors' personal standards of morality and their ability to wage total war. Surface and Destroy is a thorough analysis of the submariner experience and the effects of surface attacks on the war in the Pacific, offering a compelling study of the battles that became "intolerably personal."

The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific Michael Sturma. Trenowden, Ian. Malayan Operations Most Secret–Force 136. ... Ward , Geoffrey C ., and Ken Burns . The War: An Intimate History , 1941– 1945 . New York: Knopf, 2007. Ward , Norvell G. The ..."

American Political and Cultural Perspectives on Japan

American Political and Cultural Perspectives on Japan: From Perry to Obama presents a panoramic survey of American images and ideas about Japan—past, present, and future.

Learning from Shogun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy. Santa Barbara: University of California Santa Barbara Program in Asian Studies, 1980. Spector , Ronald H . The Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan ."

Imperial Japan's World War Two

Gruhl's narrative makes clear why Japan's World War II aggression still touches deep emotions with East Asians and Western ex-prisoners of war, and why there is justifiable sensitivity to the way modern Japan has dealt with this legacy. Knowledge of the enormity of Japan's total war is also necessary to assess the United States' and her allies' policies toward Japan, and their reactions to its actions, extending from Manchuria in 1931 to Hiroshima in 1945. Gruhl takes the view that World War II started in 1931 when Japan, crowded and poor in raw materials but with a sense of military invincibility, saw empire as her salvation and invaded China. Japan's imperial regime had volatile ambitions but limited resources, thus encouraging them to unleash a particularly brutal offensive against the peoples of Asia and surrounding ocean islands. Their 1931 to 1945 invasions and policies further added to Asia's pre-war woes, particularly in China, by badly disrupting marginal economies, leading to famines and epidemics. Altogether, the victims of Japan's World War Two aggression took many forms and were massive in number. Gruhl offers a survey and synthesis of the historical literature and documentation, statistical data, as well as personal interviews and first-hand accounts to provide a comprehensive overview analysis. The sequence of diplomatic and military events leading to Pearl Harbor, as well as those leading to the U.S. decision to drop the atom bomb, are explored here as well as Japan's war crimes and postwar revisionist/apologist views regarding them. This book will be of intense interest to Asian specialists, and those concerned with human rights issues in a historical context.

The Japanese Story. Marshfield, WI: Research Paper, 1980. Spector , Ronald H . Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan . New York: The Free Press, 1985. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China."

The American Experiment

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s stunning trilogy of American history, spanning the birth of the Constitution to the final days of the Cold War. In these three volumes, Pulitzer Prize–\u00ad and National Book Award–winner James MacGregor Burns chronicles with depth and narrative panache the most significant cultural, economic, and political events of American history. In The Vineyard of Liberty, he combines the color and texture of early American life with meticulous scholarship. Focusing on the tensions leading up to the Civil War, Burns brilliantly shows how Americans became divided over the meaning of Liberty. In The Workshop of Democracy, Burns explores more than a half-century of dramatic growth and transformation of the American landscape, through the addition of dozens of new states, the shattering tragedy of the First World War, the explosion of industry, and, in the end, the emergence of the United States as a new global power. And in The Crosswinds of Freedom, Burns offers an articulate and incisive examination of the US during its rise to become the world’s sole superpower—through the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War, and the rapid pace of technological change that gave rise to the “American Century.”

[“This means war”]: ibid., p. 475. [Pearl Harbor]: ibid., chs. 61-67; Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (Free Press, 1985), pp. 1-7; Toland, Rising Sun, pp. 211-20; Klingaman, ch. 27."

Victory On The Potomac

War is waged not only on battlefields. In the mid-1980s a high-stakes political struggle to redesign the relationships among the president, secretary of defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and warfighting commanders in the field resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Author James R. Locher III played a key role in the congressional effort to repair a dysfunctional military whose interservice squabbling had cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and put the lives of thousands of servicemen and women at risk. Victory on this front helped make possible the military successes the United States has enjoyed since the passage of the bill and to prepare it for the challenges it must still face.Victory on the Potomac provides the first detailed history of how Congress unified the Pentagon and does so with the benefit of an insider's view. In a fast-paced account that reads like a novel, Locher follows the bill through congressional committee to final passage, making clear that the process is neither abstract nor automatic. His vivid descriptions bring to life the amazing cast of this real-life drama, from the straight-shooting chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Barry Goldwater, to the peevishly stubborn secretary of defense, Caspear Weinberger.Locher's analysis of political maneuvering and bureaucratic infighting will fascinate anyone who has an interest in how government works, and his understanding of the stakes in military reorganization will make clear why this legislative victory meant so much to American military capability. James R. Locher III, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School began his career in Washington as an executive trainee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has worked in the White House, the Pentagon, and the Senate. During the period covered by this book, he was a staff member for the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Since then, he has served as an assistant secretary of defense in the first Bush and the early Clinton administrations. Currently, he works as a consultant and lecturer on defense matters.

 Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun : The American War with Japan ( New York : Free Press , 1985 ) , 144-45 . 14. Robert E. Sherwood . Roosevelt and Hopkins : An Intimate History ( New York : Harper and Brothers , 1948 ) ..."

World Politics and the Evolution of War

In this comprehensive study, international relations scholar John Weltman explores the many roles of war in world politics. With topics ranging from the development of strategic thought to the effects on war of political and technological change, from the uses of force—and threats of force—to the uses of arms control, from the prominence of war in history to its likely fate in the post-Cold War world, Weltman's analysis offers a detailed, thoroughgoing, and rigorous overview of the subject. Throughout, Weltman questions a number of widely held assumptions. To the conventional argument that the number of players in the international system determines the incidence and character of war, he responds with evidence that suggesting that the social, material, and intellectual context within which conflicts occur is far more influential. Weltman also questions the prevailing wisdom that democracies are inherently peaceful and autocracies inherently warlike, arguing instead that the propensity to wage war—and the effects of war—are largely the products of prevailing expectations: whether or not war offers a means for the cheap, easy, and decisive accomplishment of a government's objectives. And he criticizes the dominant view that conflict—even violent conflict—is psychologically "abnormal." Drawing upon the traditional distinction between wars of "attrition" and wars of "annihilation," Weltman sees the trend toward the former—despite the anomalous Persian Gulf conflict—aslikely to continue. While this trend does not suggest the end of warfare (much less the "end of history"), it does imply the localization of conflict and the minimization of the danger of global conflagration. The "new world order," Weltman concludes, will be far from peaceful, but the conflicts that do arise will be slow-burning and difficult to spread. Outside intervention in these conflicts will be costly.

For the war in the Pacific generally , see Ronald H . Spector , Eagle against the Sun : The American War with Japan ( New York : Free Press , 1985 ) . See also E. B. Potter and Chester W. Nimitz , ed . , Sea Power : A Naval History ..."

A War To Be Won

Chronicles the military operations and tactics of World War II in both the European and Pacific theaters from the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to the surrender of Japan in 1945.

fighting the Second World War Williamson Murray, Allan Reed Millett ... Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. ... Spector , Ronald H . Eagle against the Sun: The American War 628 SUGGESTED READING."

The Intelligence Revolution

11. Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun : The American War with Japan ( New York : Vintage Books , 1985 ) , pp 454–455 . 12. USSBS , Japanese Military and Naval Intelligence , pp 1-2 . 13. Ibid , pp 2 , 30 . 14. Spector , Eagle ..."

The Crosswinds of Freedom, 1932–1988

A Pulitzer Prize winner’s “immensely readable” history of the United States from FDR’s election to the final days of the Cold War (Publishers Weekly). The Crosswinds of Freedom is an articulate and incisive examination of the United States during its rise to become the world’s sole superpower. Here is a young democracy transformed by the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War, the rapid pace of technological change, and the distinct visions of nine presidents. Spanning fifty-six years and touching on many corners of the nation’s complex cultural tapestry, Burns’s work is a remarkable look at the forces that gave rise to the “American Century.”

[“This means war”]: ibid., p. 475. [Pearl Harbor]: ibid., chs. 61-67; Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (Free Press, 1985), pp. 1-7; Toland, Rising Sun, pp. 211-20; Klingaman, ch. 27."

The U.S. Army and World War II

The U.S. Army and World War II is an anthology of selected papers from three international conferences held in 1990, 1992, and 1994 on the Army's role in the war. Taking the best from those meetings, Judith L. Bellafaire has organized the various presentations into four thematic categories--prewar planning, the home front, the European theater, and the Asian-Pacific theaters--reflecting the diversity of both the war and the interest of those seeking to understand its many facets. In these carefully edited papers, one will find the more conventional treatments of doctrine, strategy, and operations side by side with those focusing on military mobilization and procurement, race and gender, psychological warfare, and large-scale advice and assistance programs. Despite significant changes in military technology and the geopolitical landscape of the world since those desperate times, the human problems highlighted by the authors are not much different from many of those facing Army leaders today. Although the past can never provide the specific recipes needed for the future, experience has shown that both the basic ingredients and the manner in which they are prepared and processed have remained remarkably constant. Those grappling with the challenges of stability operations and other contingency missions in support of the Global War on Terrorism will find this collection of readings invaluable.

Christopher Thorne , Allies of a Kind : The United States , Britain , and the War Against Japan , 1941-1945 ( New York : Oxford University Press , 1978 ) ; Ronald H . Spector , Eagle Against the Sun : The American War With Japan ( New ..."

Japan at War

This compelling reference focuses on the events, individuals, organizations, and ideas that shaped Japanese warfare from early times to the present day. Japan's military prowess is legendary. From the early samurai code of morals to the 20th-century battles in the Pacific theater, this island nation has a long history of duty, honor, and valor in warfare. This fascinating reference explores the relationship between military values and Japanese society, and traces the evolution of war in this country from 700 CE to modern times. In Japan at War: An Encyclopedia, author Louis G. Perez examines the people and ideas that led Japan into or out of war, analyzes the outcomes of battles, and presents theoretical alternatives to the strategic choices made during the conflicts. The book contains contributions from scholars in a wide range of disciplines, including history, political science, anthropology, sociology, language, literature, poetry, and psychology; and the content features internal rebellions and revolutions as well as wars with other countries and kingdoms. Entries are listed alphabetically and extensively cross-referenced to help readers quickly locate topics of interest. Topic finder lists A comprehensive timeline 10 maps of key military theaters Essential primary source documents related to the military history of Japan

Ignoring the risk of Japanese submarines, the American carriers turned on all their lights to guide their fliers, and efficient search-and-rescue ... Further Reading Spector , Ronald H . Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan ."