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ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Good book, well written and easy to read since not "too scientific".

Regarding his bias - well, since his book "Infamy" Toland is considered to be a revisionist (he bolsters the thesis that FRD knew in advance of the pending PH attack but did nothing).

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ORIGINAL: spence

I enjoyed the book greatly and it certainly offered up a great deal of information that was never before included in other Western histories.

As far as bias is concerned I would agree that it was more sympathetic to the Japanese than I had previously encountered in histories but I would hardly call it bias.

(IIRC Mr Toland married a Japanese woman...it's probably all her fault)

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ORIGINAL: vettim89

I find Toland's writing to be an essential addition to any PTO library. There are few sources that cover the political environment in Japan both prior to and during the war. If you call not potraying the Japanese people as mindless drones at the mercy of their military leadership bias, then you could call Toland biased. I feel like he is one of the few people who actually looked at the other side and its motivations with more than a cursory glance

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ORIGINAL: ckammp

In the forward, Toland makes clear his belief that the war started due entirely to American racism towards Japanese and other Asians.
That's not "sympathy", that's pure bias.
Throw in his descriptions of Japanese soldiers as supermen who can kill three enemies with one shot, compared to American soldiers who are portrayed as bumbling and undisciplined, whose only tactics are frontal attacks which seem to always end with the Americans running away. One wonders how, with every Japanese soldier seemingly capable of killing ten Americans, Japan lost the war.
Toland was no historian - all he wanted to due was make money selling books. And publishing a book in 1970 that showcased Asian military competence at the expense of Americans = Pulitzer Prize = lots of money.
The book would have been much better if Toland had simply shown the Japanese as the brave, competent people they were, while not degrading the Americans.

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ORIGINAL: ckammp



In the forward, Toland makes clear his belief that the war started due entirely to American racism towards Japanese and other Asians.
That's not "sympathy", that's pure bias.

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Throw in his descriptions of Japanese soldiers as supermen who can kill three enemies with one shot, compared to American soldiers who are portrayed as bumbling and undisciplined, whose only tactics are frontal attacks which seem to always end with the Americans running away. One wonders how, with every Japanese soldier seemingly capable of killing ten Americans, Japan lost the war.
Toland was no historian - all he wanted to due was make money selling books. And publishing a book in 1970 that showcased Asian military competence at the expense of Americans = Pulitzer Prize = lots of money.
The book would have been much better if Toland had simply shown the Japanese as the brave, competent people they were, while not degrading the Americans.

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ORIGINAL: ckammp

From the forward:
"America's greatest mistake in World War II, I blieve, was in failing to recognize that she was fighting two different kinds of war simultaneously: one in Europe against another Western people and philosophy, Nazism, one in Asia which was not only a struggle against
an aggressive nation fighting for survival as a modern power but an ideological contest against an entire continent.

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Millions of Orientals saw Japan's battle as their own, as a confrontation of race and color; they also saw in japan's victories their own liberation from Western domination.

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"Each nation, the United States not excepted, has made its contribution to the welter of evil which now comprises the Far East question. We shall all do well to drop for all time the pose of self-righteousness and injured innocence and penitently face the facts."

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What part of that do you not understand?

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Japan is "fighting for survival" due to American racism. If only America would have admitted her guilt, apologized, and given Japan everything she demanded, the war would not have happened.

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ORIGINAL: ckammp

From the forward:
"America's greatest mistake in World War II, I blieve, was in failing to recognize that she was fighting two different kinds of war simultaneously: one in Europe against another Western people and philosophy, Nazism, one in Asia which was not only a struggle against
an aggressive nation fighting for survival as a modern power but an ideological contest against an entire continent. Millions of Orientals saw Japan's battle as their own, as a confrontation of race and color; they also saw in japan's victories their own liberation from Western domination.
"Each nation, the United States not excepted, has made its contribution to the welter of evil which now comprises the Far East question. We shall all do well to drop for all time the pose of self-righteousness and injured innocence and penitently face the facts."
If we had done so, it is very probable that our negotiations with Japan in 1941 would have ended in peace, not war"

What part of that do you not understand?

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

quote:

ORIGINAL: ckammp

From the forward:
"America's greatest mistake in World War II, I blieve, was in failing to recognize that she was fighting two different kinds of war simultaneously: one in Europe against another Western people and philosophy, Nazism, one in Asia which was not only a struggle against
an aggressive nation fighting for survival as a modern power but an ideological contest against an entire continent. Millions of Orientals saw Japan's battle as their own, as a confrontation of race and color; they also saw in japan's victories their own liberation from Western domination.
"Each nation, the United States not excepted, has made its contribution to the welter of evil which now comprises the Far East question. We shall all do well to drop for all time the pose of self-righteousness and injured innocence and penitently face the facts."
If we had done so, it is very probable that our negotiations with Japan in 1941 would have ended in peace, not war"

What part of that do you not understand?

There is truth in what he wrote and this is echoed in other books including John Caputo, Edward Drea and most recently Frank McClynn. The US and the West had their own agenda in regards to Asia and did not wish to cede that agenda or control to the Japanese. Japan was a "Have not" nation looking to emulate what the West had done in the previous centuries....expand via colonial/imperialistic/Manifest Destiny etc. The US was a "have" nation, rich in resources, population and industry. It had already acheived it's goal and didn't want the apple cart upset. Thats bad for business. Was Roosevelt any less wrong for wanting China to be the Big man of Asia, (with suitibly lucrative trading and economic ties for the US) vs. Japan wanting to be the Big Man? Is this bias? Its called compeating agendas.

McClynn recently said the same thing. Myopic policies towards Asia helped push that region into armed conflict. Takes two to tango. Does this make the US completely wrong? no. Was there serious sympathy for the plight of the Chinese in the US? Yes. Was Japan still "wrong"?

Ultimately yes. But not because of what she wanted to achieve. But in 'how' it was achieved. The brutalities created by a militarily dominated government that deliberately sought to create a martial society that stressed cultural and spiritual superiority beget a cruelty that leaves scars to this day. Personally though I find the Nazi plan more sinister as it was organized, planned, deliberate genocide and displacement, carried out with a chilling clinical detachment. Its a big irony that Japan's war actually set into motion and ultimately accelerated the end of colonialism and Western dominance in Asia. Party was over for all sides concerned.

So Tolland is not saying "the war was the US's fault....Japan was innocent" He's simply pointing out that the situation wasn't black and white. I like how McClynn put it. "Western histories tend to portray Japanese militarists as simply "springing" out of the ground starting in 1931 and causing havoc" The truth is more complex and involves the West. Japan didn't simply decide to "do evil" and the US and Britian didn't jump on the white horse and say "Hiyo Silver....somebody's in trouble!"

If that was the case.....then why didn't the US immediatley jump to Britian and France's side in 1939?

Not evidence of bias. Tolland, like a few other authors is simply drilling down and trying to explain the hows and whys. That doesn't make him right in all his assertations, but the book is thought provoking. If you want a real example of bias, its when i continually see references (some admittedly tongue in cheek....others not so) about his "Japanese wife" WTF? Why arn't authors of books devoted to Allied subjects questioned about the ethnicity of their spouses wives? Does David Glantz have a Russian bride? That might explain why he gets accused of being Pro Soviet. hmmm.....