Definitive history of the Pacific War? (Full Version)

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> World in Flames



Message

CrusssDaddy -> Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/18/2015 8:15:18 PM)

This volume appears intent on laying a claim:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1472596706/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1472596706&linkCode=as2&tag=waisbo-20&linkId=XH4KQ3L342FEWNAW

Anyone read his previous work, which appears equally ambitious? He looks to be rather new, so I'm reluctant to trust him to deliver on a 1000-page/$30 promise...



Extraneous -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/18/2015 9:14:46 PM)

Have you read?

Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-33, by Hector Bywater



CrusssDaddy -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/18/2015 9:53:30 PM)

I haven't, although that looks interesting.



wworld7 -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/19/2015 4:49:49 AM)

This looks like a nice birthday present for ME this fall.



belechannas -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/19/2015 7:52:47 AM)

The best books I have read on the Pacific war (and I have read an awful lot of them) are by H.P. Willmott:

Empires in the Balance, Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942
The Barrier and the Javelin, Japanese and Allied Strategies, February to June 1942
The War with Japan: The Period of Balance, May 1942-October 1943

His level of insight and ability to explain naval strategy and operations is just amazing.

With that said, I can't recall a single-volume history of the Pacific war that really stood out.

Saburo Ienaga's book, The Pacific War 1931-1945 is definitely worth reading for its (rarely encountered) Japanese perspective.

Toland's book was interesting for the same reason, but very difficult to plow through.




brian brian -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/19/2015 11:18:32 PM)

I can't recall the volume of Japanese history that I read in college, but I found it to give me the best understanding of the war. It traced things from the Meiji Restoration on (1860s), which was very illuminating in that the Japanese officers who made decisions in the war had lived their entire lives in "Meiji" culture. This gave them certain ideological blinders quite akin to those of dedicated members of the Nazi Party; these blinders were perhaps even worse at times in that they handicapped those officers intellectually - they at times literally could not and would not plan for a military operation to be anything but a smashing success. It seemed to me that the entire Society drank from the intoxicating cup of military success and could never put it down in a train wreck of self-reinforcing evil.

The book also explained the background of political assassination that influenced high level Japanese government decision making all the way until August, 1945; the capitulation was a close-run thing, as it happened.

Looking at the war through this lens of Japanese culture explained it all much more than things like Samuel Eliot Morison's volumes, though I also enjoy those for the tactical blow-by-blow of the war.

I might be re-united with several boxes of books later this summer, I'll try and figure out which book this was. It was part of a course called "The Politics of WWII".



belechannas -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/21/2015 11:10:44 PM)

That sounds like it could be Ienaga's book.

As for the book in the original post by Pike, I bought it, and I can say with confidence that it probably isn't the "definitive" history of anything.

The book is riddled with typos, and glaring factual errors.

For some reason, he feels compelled to begin his account of "Hirohito's War" with the US Declaration of Independence, and duly attempts to recount all of world history from the late 18th century up through the 1930's. The Trail of Tears, the Second Schleswig War (1864), the Armenian genocide of WWI and First and Second Balkan wars of 1912-13, among other irrelevancies, all get their mention in the rambling and totally unfocused first chapter.

In describing the outbreak of WWI, he tells us:

quote:

Ultimately it was Germany's invasion of neutral Belgium, required by the von Schlieffen Plan's attempt to outflank France's defensive Maginot Line, that triggered Britain's guarantee of protection for Belgium signed in 1839 at the Treaty of London.


That's right, the 1914 Schlieffen Plan was an attempt to outflank the Maginot Line, which wouldn't exist for another 15 years, and was built on territory that Germany controlled in 1914...

[X(]

Another glaring factual error occurs shortly afterward, when he says that Wilson made his "14 Points Declaration" in the speech when he landed in Europe for the Versailles conference (which would have been in 1919). In fact, the 14 Points were proposed in an address to a joint session of Congress, in January 1918.

[X(]

This is not a professional work of history. I'm returning it for a refund.



Courtenay -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/22/2015 1:51:39 AM)

I have always thought very highly of Samuel Elliot Morrison's History of United States Naval Operation in World War II, 15 vol., Boston, Atlantic Little-Brown, 1947-1962.

With fifteen volumes, you can get a lot of detail, and the writing is wonderful.



CrusssDaddy -> RE: Definitive history of the Pacific War? (6/22/2015 2:07:40 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: belechannas

That sounds like it could be Ienaga's book.

As for the book in the original post by Pike, I bought it, and I can say with confidence that it probably isn't the "definitive" history of anything.

The book is riddled with typos, and glaring factual errors.

For some reason, he feels compelled to begin his account of "Hirohito's War" with the US Declaration of Independence, and duly attempts to recount all of world history from the late 18th century up through the 1930's. The Trail of Tears, the Second Schleswig War (1864), the Armenian genocide of WWI and First and Second Balkan wars of 1912-13, among other irrelevancies, all get their mention in the rambling and totally unfocused first chapter.

In describing the outbreak of WWI, he tells us:

quote:

Ultimately it was Germany's invasion of neutral Belgium, required by the von Schlieffen Plan's attempt to outflank France's defensive Maginot Line, that triggered Britain's guarantee of protection for Belgium signed in 1839 at the Treaty of London.


That's right, the 1914 Schlieffen Plan was an attempt to outflank the Maginot Line, which wouldn't exist for another 15 years, and was built on territory that Germany controlled in 1914...

[X(]

Another glaring factual error occurs shortly afterward, when he says that Wilson made his "14 Points Declaration" in the speech when he landed in Europe for the Versailles conference (which would have been in 1919). In fact, the 14 Points were proposed in an address to a joint session of Congress, in January 1918.

[X(]

This is not a professional work of history. I'm returning it for a refund.



Thanks, that's obviously a non-starter. Hope your refund is processed quickly.




Page: [1]

Valid CSS!




Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI
1.046875