AW1Steve
Posts: 14507
Joined: 3/10/2007
From: Mordor Illlinois
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ORIGINAL: Osterhaut
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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
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ORIGINAL: Nikademus
The complex situation in the Pacific is an interesting topic. Its a shame that any such discussion inevitably draws out yahoos who want to wave the flag and/or refight the war, now 70+ years past. To me, the prewar analysis was the best part of Costello's mammoth one volume work on the Pacific war. It did a good job of dispelling the white hat/black hat view
I totally agree. HP Wimott and others have recently published books on this area, and I think it's become of quite a bit of intrest ot scholars and people who are interested in the second world war and its causes.
We should leave such discussions to experts and historical discussion forums. They are questions that are too dangerous for Matrix forums. 
I am an engineer, but I have minor in History and this is my love and hobby. History is like a diamond cut, many faces, and many ways of seeing things.
The internet is very bad for history because some person will write one thing and it will be showed everywhere and the one face will become the whole diamond. Internet history becomes silly apocriphal stories that become true because they are repeated so often.
Even books do not give the answer. A writer will say what he sees from his look at a face of the diamond. I know because I write my thesis on 18 century colonial warfare the same way. The honest writer will say so much and say which face he looks through. The honest writer does not try to tell the whole truth he trys to tell a certain truth in a certain way to make a certain point. This is very good if the man says where he stands.
History is so complex that nobody can say one thing or another thing is truth. A good historian will find books and papers by more good historians and think clearly about what they say. There is no law that says a man must not disagree with a history writer or PhD. The good writers show new things from new faces and give more rows and columns to the history matrix but they just show more faces of truth it is not truth, truth is too complex.
I say this because some people can understand all this landscape and understand what the different writers are saying and why they say this. I say this because some people are just as smart as writers and can look at all the different faces and come to conclusions just as smart and just informed. I think Costello is very good but you are a historian you must read this and every thing else for your face of the diamond cut.
MO
My major was history , and I work in that field. And I think I agree with you. To paraphrase the old Romans, History "should be taken with a grain of salt". I think that to some degree is why most History BA and MA programs require a Historiography class. To remind us that our own backgrounds, class, nationality and race to some degree may twist our views. And a historian should always keep that in mind in his attempt to be unbiased. Then there are those like the late Howard Zinn who feel that we SHOULD be biased. That history is nothing more than a club to get your belifs across. I have to go with the former view , rather than the latter. But then as anyone can tell you , I'm a geezer.
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