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Title: Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict, 1853-1952 by Edwin Palmer Hoyt ISBN: 0-07-030612-5 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: April, 1986 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.4 (5 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting & Comprehensive Overview Of War In The Pacific!
Comment: One interesting aspect to this book is the fact that it traces Japanese military history back to the mid 19th century, which provides the reader with a better historical perspective to understand the rampant militarism and unbridled war fever characterizing that country at the outset of WWII. Author Edwin Hoyt does an impressive job covering the details of the war, and brings some provocative and fresh insights into several issues concerning the war as to why Japan decided to initiate it, why we were so unprepared to meet the challenge in 1941, and why they so fatefully misunderstood American character and behavior so badly to not understand that the US would enter the fray with a "terrible vengeance and resolve".

The author provides a lot of interesting data for the reader's consideration along the way. For example, he introduces the strategic notion held by the Japanese of the "eight corners of the world under one roof", or 'hakko ichiu'. This, according to the author, is key in understanding their military preparations for the war, and why their historical rivalry with the United States made them believe war was quite likely, if not inevitable, between the two countries. This is something the Japanese seemed to understand much better than did most Americans, who never saw the conflict as either likely or inevitable. Of course, given American tendencies toward international isolation, it isn't surprising we were caught so unaware.

The book is impeccably researched and documented, and the writing style is literate yet not to scholarly to be off-putting. While it certainly doesn't read like a novel, it is very entertaining to read. The author gives credence to the notion that the war in the Pacific was a quite complicated and intricately interwoven series of events that takes some deliberate effort to understand in context. Thus, his approach is painstakingly deliberate, detailed, and comprehensive. This is an excellent one-volume study of WWII in the Pacific theater of operations, and I recommend it to anyone seriously inclined to learn as much as possible about the history of the Japanese so as to better understand what happened that led to the decision to attack Pearl Harbor as well as an excellent overview of the conduct of the war itself.

Rating: 3
Summary: Good, but could have been much better.
Comment: The good news is that this book covers a lot of territory not often covered. It is worth the time to read. The bad news is the large number of typographical and factual errors.

The book takes a look at the big picture of Japan's involvement in WWII, covering the history from the opening of Japan to the West up to 1952, concentrating on the Japanese point of view. Unfortunately, no one who understood Japanese proofread the book. In addition to the typos in English, there is a huge number of errors in Japanese. Some of them seem to be deliberate; for example, "Nomonhan" is consistently referred to as "Homonhon."

Unfortunately, the errors aren't limited to typos and misspelled names. As a simple example, in the preface the author states "The result, as the world knows, was the war Westerners call the Pacific War, but which the Japanese have always referrred [sic] to as Dai-Toa Senso, the Great East Asia War." While this is indeed one name by which the war is known, it is certainly not the only--and in my own experience, not the most common--name for it. I also understand that some of the photograph captions contain blatant misidentifications. Much more seriously, the author seems to let his opinions guide his selection of facts. For example, in the final chapters, the discussion of the effect of the atomic bombs on the attitude of the Imperial Army is quite good, but the author goes on to say that the bombs had no effect on the Emperor's decision to surrender. This, in spite of the "minor" detail that the Emperor himself said that the second atomic bomb was what made him decide to force the militarists to lay down their arms.

All in all, the book is worth reading, but it would be even more worthwhile if the author and publisher had taken more care in its production.

Rating: 5
Summary: A Different Perspective
Comment: This book's focus is on the motivations and background activity relating to Japanese Imperialism. It also has the Japanese viewpoint of Western Imperialism and how foreign activity (primarily British & American) influenced Japan. Since this perspective is seldom found in histories of the war in the Pacific - I rate it as 5 stars. Interesting and informative . . .