Ronald H. SpectorBesprekingen

One volume history of WW2 in the Pacific draws on declassified intelligence files; British, American, and Japanese archival material; and military memoirs. 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. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Eagle-Against-the-Sun/Ronald-H-Spector/97...

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.
A historian at the Army Center for Military History, Spector concentrates on the problem of command in the Southern Pacific theaters, the rivalries between the various U.S. armed services and the problem of allocating resources. PW praised his ability to ""show how even the most efficiently run campaigns unfold against a background of violent dispute.'' https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780394741017

This is an excellent history of China and Southeast Asia from after World War II ends until the mid-1950’s. There is so much information in here – the author presents a pretty balanced account of the civil wars and colonialism post WWII – excesses and failures on both sides. If you believe you have a “good” understanding of the history there but have never read any detailed accounts like this book, I urge you to read this book. Be prepared though, the book is lengthy and is likely to take a lot of reading time to digest everything.

I came away with such an enhanced understanding that changed some of my views on American and other foreign involvements in Korea (before and during the Korean War) and Vietnam (pre-US 1960’s involvement – the US Vietnam war is not covered, although the precursor years are covered.) Worst of all, the details of the deaths and casualties on every side will sadden you as it did me. The tales of vengeance and revenge that occurred before and after changes in control of areas will shock you. Perhaps not enough attention has been given to the human loss involved in what seemed like constant civil wars, fomented by foreign powers (this includes the US and France, but also China and the Soviet Union), partly because the focus in other countries (US and Europe) was on the end of WWII and recovery from the traumas of the early 1930s through 1945.

Er í dálitlum vandræðum með að meta þessa bók.
Annars vegar er hún ágætlega rannsökuð og fjallar vel um ólguna í kjölfar síðari heimsstyrjaldarinnar í rústum japanska heimsveldisins í Asíu.
Hins vegar segir Spector einungis hluta sögunnar og greinir ekki frá því hvers vegna hann fjallar eingungis um sum ríki en sleppir öðrum né finnst mér hann taka saman niðurstöður sínar með fullnægjandi hætti.
Spector greinir frá aðstæðum og ólgu í Kína, Kóreu, Indókína, Malyasíu og Indónesíu við uppgjöf Japana. Hvernig Bandamenn brugðust við uppgjöfinni með því að senda hersveitir til þessara svæða fyrst og fremst til að bjarga stríðsföngum og afvopna Japani.
Í ljós kemur síðan að þeir verða oft að fá japönsku hersveitirnar til að berja niður þjóðernissveitir heimamanna með valdi allt til 1947 en japönsku hermennirnir gengu líka stundum í lið með þessum sveitum. Þá lentu gömlu nýlenduþjóðirnar í miklum vandræðum með að ná aftur tökum á nýlendum sínum á svæðinu.
Helstu niðurstöður höfundar eru þær að bandamenn fóru algerlega þekkingarlausir til landanna, t.d. var enginn í herliðinu sem fyrst fór til Kóreu sem kunni tungumálið og þeir höfðu einungis nokkrar blaðsíður úr ferðabók frá 1905 til að styðjast við sér til upplýsingar. Spector bendir á hve aðstæður líkjast hernámi Íraks síðar meir.
Að lokum var ég sáróánægður með hvers vegna höfundur tiltók ekki hvers vegna hann fjallaði ekki um aðstæður í Filippseyjum, Japan, Suður-Kyrrahafi og Tævan í kjölfar stríðsins. Umfang slíkrar bókar hefði vissulega verið gríðarlegt en samanburður eða skýringar ættu vel heima.

I think this is the best one-volume on the Pacific War that I have ever read. Wonderful Folio Society edition.

There were a few repetitive moments between chapters when the same factoid was presented or same transition repeated between events, but overall a great read - tore through it over a holiday weekend.

Another superb book by LOA and the perfect companion volume to Part One, the early years. Good reporting by numerous journalists on the situation in Cambodia as well as VietNam. The only prose I did not like in this volume was the 200 page piece to end the book by Michael Herr. Twas probably stoned most of the time he wrote it as much of it is incomprehensible. Finished 21.07.2020.

A superb documentary. The only faults I found were with the inclusion of Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, neither of whom I can appreciate. Finished 11.07.2020.½

In the 1960s Macmillan began publishing a series entitled "The Macmillan Wars of the United States." Written by some of the nation's leading military historians, its volumes offered surveys of the various conflicts America had fought over the centuries, the strategies employed, and the services which fought them. Ultimately fourteen volumes were published over two decades, with many of them still serving as excellent accounts of their respective subjects.

As the last book published in the series, Ronald Spector's contribution to it serves as a sort of capstone to its incomplete efforts. In it he provides an account of the battles and campaigns waged by the United States against Japan in the Second World War, from the prewar planning and the assumptions held in the approach to war to the deployment of the atomic bombs that ended it. In between the covers all of the major naval battles and island-hopping campaigns in the Pacific, as well as America's military efforts in the China-Burma-India theater. He rounds out his coverage with chapters discussing both the social composition of the forces America deployed and the complex intelligence operations against the Japanese, ones that extended beyond the now-famous codebreaking efforts that proved so valuable.

Though dated in a few respects, overall Spector's book serves as a solid single-volume survey of the war waged by the United States against Japan. By covering the efforts against the Japanese in mainland Asia, he incorporates an important aspect of the war too often overlooked or glossed over in histories of America's military effort against the Japanese, one that often influenced developments elsewhere in the theater. Anyone seeking an introduction to America's war with Japan would be hard pressed to find a better book, which stands as a great example of what Macmillan set out to accomplish when they first embarked upon the series.

Ronald Spector is author of Eagle Against the Sun, an acclaimed one-volume history of World War II in the Pacific. With In the Ruins of Empire, he takes on the aftermath – the attempts by the Allies to restore local or colonial governments to Korea, China, Indochina, Malaya, and Indonesia from the end of the war to 1950 or so.


When I was growing up in the 1950s the conventional political wisdom was that the US had “lost” China to the Communists (but fortunately we have saved South Vietnam and South Korea). Ma Zedong, Ho Chih-Min and Kim Il-sung were Soviet puppets and brutal dictators, and only Reds and Pinkos believed otherwise. By the time I was of draft age in the 70s, the same three were patriotic nationalists who only turned to Communism after their advances to the United States were rebuffed, and only reactionaries and John Birchers believed otherwise. And nobody cared about Malaya or Indonesia. Spector has a more nuanced take on the whole thing.

The Allied priorities in all the occupied areas was (1) aid and repatriate POWs (plus a significant number of interned Dutch civilians in Indonesia); (2) repatriate Japanese military and civilians to Japan and (3) set up civilian governments. (These are the Western Allied priorities, of course; the Soviets and Chinese had other ideas). Item number one went fairly well; American teams parachuted or air-landed in Korea and Manchuria and although there were some tense incidents involving Japanese troops (and in Manchuria, Soviet troops) the POWs were sent home without too much hassle (an American officer, John Birch, looking for POW camps in Manchuria was killed by Chinese Communists). The Vichy government of Indochina reached an agreement with the Japanese that lasted until almost the end of the war; French civilians were never interned and the French government continued to operate under Japanese supervision. There wasn’t any Allied POW presence to speak of. Malaya also went fairly smoothly as far as POWs were concerned, although this time it was Commonwealth and Indian troops that moved in. Indonesia, though, was problematic. The Allies agreed that Australian (Borneo) and British and Indian troops (everywhere else) would take care of initial occupation, to be replaced by Dutch as soon as the Netherlands recovered from its own occupation; the Indonesians weren’t having any of it. (Spector notes that the Dutch had been fighting a desultory guerilla war in parts of Indonesia even before the Japanese occupation). Landings were resisted and substantial numbers of Dutch civilians survived four years of internment by the Japanese only to be killed by Indonesians before they could be rescued.


Repatriation of Japanese didn’t go very smoothly anywhere. The Allies (except the Soviets and Chinese, again) found that they need Japanese troops to maintain order; thus in many cases they were allowed to retain their weapons and conduct police work until the Allies could get enough of their own troops in. This went reasonably well in most of the occupied areas but not at all in Indonesia. The Japanese had promised Indonesian independence and had behaved with less brutality toward Indonesians than they had in other occupied areas; huge quantities of Japanese weapons were turned over to Indonesians outright or simply abandoned intact where they could be collected by locals. There was also a substantial number – nobody is quite sure how many but probably in the thousands – of Japanese “stay behinds” that joined up with various Indonesian paramilitary units.

And, of course, we know what happened to the attempts to set up civilian governments. In Korea, the US was handicapped by an almost total lack of anybody who spoke Korean; there were only a handful, who were mostly sons of former missionaries. There were, of course, not very many Koreans who spoke English either. Although the Americans initially received an enthusiastic welcome relations quickly deteriorated. Korea was an extremely unpopular duty station for American troops; Spector notes that almost every officer assigned to Korea requested transfer elsewhere. The military command put Korean towns off-limits to American troops for “health reasons”. Koreans complained that the few elite who happened to speak English were favored by the occupiers and noted that many of these had been collaborators with the Japanese. Things eventually got more or less straightened out, but there was never any accommodation with the Soviets. (Spector reports without comment a claim made by an unnamed American officer who had been a liaison with Manchurian guerrillas during the war: that Kim Il-sung was an imposter. Supposedly the Korean guerrilla he’d met was a man of about 50 while the “national hero” the Soviets presented was about 35, “fat, dissipated and pasty-looking”. I’ve never heard of this before and Spector doesn’t go anywhere with it).


The Americans landed Marines in China, which was a much more popular duty station than Korea; old hand “China Marines” told the younger ones all sorts of stories. The Marines also received an enthusiastic welcome; there were some gunfire interactions with Communists but the Communists always apologized afterward. However, things went haywire here too. Two Marine enlisted men had too much to drink at a 1946 Christmas party and went out looking for some action; they encountered Shen Chung, a nineteen-year-old university student. The Marines either thought Shen Chung was a prostitute or were too drunk to care. After Shen Chung was examined by a Navy doctor, the Marines announced the two men would be tried for rape. Thousands of protestors showed up; Spector notes that at the time in China, rape was a more serious crime than murder. The Marines were aggressively prosecuted; one was sentenced to 15 years for rape and the other was found guilty of assault. A number of senior Chinese politicians had noted that public opinion in China would be satisfied if the men received severe sentences. Then the US Department of the Navy overturned the sentences and restored both men to active duty. Needless to say, this didn’t help popular opinion much; Spector notes that until this case Communists hadn’t much influence with students or urban Chinese and that the KMT was doing fairly well (Mao Zedong, never much of a military strategist, had insisted on defense of some fixed positions in Manchuria over the protests of his generals and the KMT had crushed them. But it was all downhill for the KMT after that).


In Vietnam (technically, there wasn’t any Vietnam yet; the French colonies were Tonkin, capital Hanoi; Annam, capital Hue; and Cochin China, capital Saigon – plus Laos and Cambodia) initial occupation of the north was done by the Chinese. The situation was very muddled, with Viet Minh, French, Japanese, Chinese and various nationalists groups fighting each other (and a handful of Americans concerned with getting POWs out). There was some contact between the Viet Minh and Americans but they were in no position to overrule the French. Eventually the French landed enough troops at Hanoi and brought others up from the south and things settled down somewhat; we all know how it ended up in the long run.


The Malayans had their own Communist guerillas, the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). The MPAJA had considerable success against the Japanese, especially after the British began air-dropping weapons. However, they were mostly ethnic Chinese in a Malay and Muslim country, and alienated the locals by taxation and violence. It still took the British a long time to root them all out but Spector doesn’t go that far in his discussion.


The situation in Indonesia was the most surprising to me; I hadn’t realized that much fighting went on. The British and Australians in Indonesian found themselves in an even more complicated situation than the Americans in Korea; they weren’t even initially greeted as liberators and had to fight their way ashore. There were numerous air strikes and naval bombardments of Indonesian positions and fairly large unit actions that resulted in substantial casualties on both sides. British troop morale was poor; the men had been fighting for years and wanted to go home, not fight some more on behalf of the Dutch. The Australians had it better in Borneo and western Indonesia; however Australian dockworkers went on strike and refused to load military supplies. Eventually the Dutch got enough of their own troops in and thing s settled down but Indonesian did get independence quickly.


This is a relatively short summary of an interesting book; I’ve left out a lot of the politics among the various Allied nations and the locals. Most histories of WWII in the Pacific end on the deck of the Missouri; I never appreciated what went on afterward and which still resonates in international relations.

A first class rendition of Vietnam reportage. Helped by including "Dispatches" by Michael Herr in full in Vol.2.
What emerges from these writers is a feeling that in war, the human being enters a new state of being. Ideological delusion, when acted out requires the soldier, the advisor, the politician, the victim, everyone who's close at hand to enter a new crazed mentality. A moral civilized standpoint doesn't seem to work much any more.
Because war destroys one's humanity, a survivor from this hellish state suffers agonies and fears that haunt the person, too often for a lifetime. It is heartbreaking to remember that the average age of the combatant in this devastating descent to madness was nineteen.
A masterpiece from the Library of America.

A first class rendition of Vietnam reportage. Helped by including "Dispatches" by Michael Herr in full in Vol.2.
What emerges from these writers is a feeling that in war, the human being enters a new state of being. Ideological delusion, when acted out requires the soldier, the advisor, the politician, the victim, everyone who's close at hand to enter a new crazed mentality. A moral civilized standpoint doesn't seem to work much any more.
Because war destroys one's humanity, a survivor from this hellish state suffers agonies and fears that haunt the person, too often for a lifetime. It is heartbreaking to remember that the average age of the combatant in this devastating descent to madness was nineteen.
A masterpiece from the Library of America.

A comprehensive telling of the Allied War effort against Japan in the Pacific Theater during WW2.
This is what I consider a must read for anyone who is interested in this particular topic of Military History.

Library of America has put together a unique collection of newspaper and magazine articles from some the most prominent writers and journalists from the Vietnam era; detailing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Part 1 covers everything from the first deaths of American advisors in 1959 to the growing protest movement of 1969. Included in this collection is everything from detached and dispassionate pieces on policy to gut wrenching firsthand accounts of battles and protests. Laid out in chronological order, this collection is the history of the Vietnam War’s first ten years, at least from the American perspective.

Prior to this book I really didn’t know much about the Vietnam War. For instances, I didn’t realize the complexity of the politics, tactics, and the Vietnamese culture was so obvious to so many of these authors. It seems naïve now, but I thought much of these details were only reveled to us through the lens of history. Granted this collection is very pessimistic or anti-war. There’s not must of a hawkish point-of-view presented within its pages. Which is a fault, my parents remember the public debate be much richer than what is presented in this collection. It’s hard to gauge whether this is an actual accounting of the history without the propaganda or if this is the whitewashed less complicated version. It would have been nice to be presented with both views, so that a reader like me could get a more balanced view of the time. Not that a single coherent thread is a bad thing. It’s just nice to have a few more counterpoints sprinkled throughout the collection for a more nuanced view of history. The advantage though of a single minded approach makes for a coherent thread and an understandable timeline for a novice.

This collection is informative, sad, and tragic. There’s no light reading, it’s all pretty rough and will leave you ragged by it all. But it’s worth it. It’s worth understanding the sheer stupidity of war, it’s worth understanding the motivations of those that serve, it’s worth understanding the social and political turmoil of the era, and it’s worth understanding the complexity of the decisions faced by the people that come before us. Vietnam was an important time for the America for so many reasons.

This is a very good book about the initial American occupation of Japanese conquests after World War II. The author provides a comprehensive summary and analysis for what went wrong and what went right. He breaks the work down by region and time. The regions include China, Korea, Vietnam, Malaya and Indonesia. His larger points are that there was no organized plan and very little consistency. Most decisions were made by the commanders on the ground as Washington (and Moscow) flip-flopped over whether to cooperate or compete.

In many cases, the conditions on the ground dictated the success or failure of the occupation rather than American policy. The Koreans were already hostile to the American occupation force, especially when the occupation government put in place policies very similar to the Japanese in terms of fixing prices and requisitioning food. In China, the US was trying to prevent a costly civil war, but could not overcome the mutual distrust and hatred between the Nationalists and Communists. In Vietnam, the Americans were stuck between wanting to support national self-determination for the Vietnamese and wanting to support their French allies.

He also discusses the overlooked aspect of the occupation -- what to do with the Japanese? In most of these places, they were the ones keeping the peace. Letting them continue to do so, as they did in Korea, drastically undercut their credibility with the locals. Yet not doing so would create a power vacuum and potentially chaos.

Spector is clearly writing with an eye towards lessons for Iraq, as he states in his conclusion. Yet he cautions against making sweeping generalizations. The detail of his work provides some very specific lessons learned from the post-WWII occupation that can be applied, but he shows that larger generalizations are risky. If there is one that he is willing to accept, it is that occupying powers must have a plan for getting in and getting out as quickly and painlessly as possible (an allusion to the Powell Doctrine).

The writing and research are top notch. This is one of the easiest history books I've read in a while. It is essential for someone wanted to understand post-WWI east Asia.

This is a generally excellent history of the Pacific theater in WWII from the (mostly) US perspective. Well written, carefully researched and thoroughly documented, it is exceptional as a bibliographical resource for further study.

I am sure there will always be dozens of both major and minor issues we, decades later, Monday morning quarterbacks who were not even there can debated but I would consider assessments and judgements in this book to be well balanced - with a couple of exceptions. Though Spector reports some of the tragedies stemming from the massively arrogant egos of too many ranking US officers resulting in inefficient command structures and foolish rivalries causing untold numbers of lost military as well as civilian lives he seems to excuse these as acceptable characteristics of war. Some of these desirve at least moral condemation. On another level of morality the decision to use the atomic bomb is a bottomless quagmire of issues but I think Spector gave short shrift to argument that dropping the bombs ended the war more quickly thanavailable any "not dropping" options available to the US and saved many lives both US and Japanese.

Eagle against the Sun by Ron Spector turned out to be quite an informative book about some little known areas; Burma, Thailand, New Guinea, coastwatchers and submarines as well as interesting insights into the MacArthur vs Nimitz issues that were part of the Pacific scene. Well written with good documentation, at the end of each chapter, and seeded nicely with apt personal vignettes.

I read Ronald Spector’s one-volume history of the American war against Japan in honor of last month’s VJ day.
Spector’s book received acclaim when it was published in 1985. He covers, in 589 pages, the Pacific conflict from pre-war planning to the conclusion of the war. In doing so, he must strike a balance between detail of action, strategic political decisions, intelligence and logistics.

He does this well and the book is easy reading. I found an appropriate balance between background behind the strategic and political decisions made (Why were we in Guadalcanal anyway?) and the salt spray of action in the air, jungles and on the seas. The advances across the Pacific rightly receive prime attention but action in China, India, and Burma are not neglected.

As a survey of the Pacific war, I recommend it.

As I read it, I found myself wondering how those images of leadership color our thinking now and how true were they. For example, we hear about Lieutenant Colonel Chesty Puller’s First Battalion, Seventh Marines critical defense against superior numbers of Japanese at the airfield on Guadalcanal. Yet, how much of that was accomplished by top down direction and how much was accomplished by deliberate planning, and distributed decision making by small elements of Marines in their individual foxholes?
I also found myself wanting more information on the industrial decisions made in wartime America. When and why did were the key decisions about the B-29 made? What about the Essex class carrier? I’m looking for a good follow-up read here.

The most exciting book I’ve read about the Pacific war is the recent Shattered Sword, The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. It covers a specific battle but the depth of research is eye-opening and myth-busting!

An excellent review of the pacific war. Much told from the Japanese view.½

Good overview (what a task!), but it's not very exciting (although not as dry as some). Telling a story from so high level requires lots of maps (since there's so little anecdotal storytelling), but there are no maps except the entire theater map on the inside cover which is not very helpful.½

Naval warfare has traditionally been seen as being very heavily dependent on technology, perhaps more so than on the human seafarers employing the technology, and naval history has frequently emphasized the technological innovations that have transformed naval warfare, particularly in the twentieth century. Criticizing this view as “technological determinism,” Ronald Spector in At War at Sea chose to turn this view on its head, instead emphasizing people, training, cultural backgrounds, and a host of other social and cultural factors in his study of twentieth-century naval warfare. Spector used this “human dimension” to explore how navies using similar technologies achieved very different levels of success and failure (e.g., the Russo-Japanese War) and why navies chose to use technologies in dramatically different ways, as with the British and American experiences with early naval aviation. Spector provided a much-needed emphasis on the human factors involved in warfare, though he was unable to avoid emphasizing technology in his narrative. For example, though he stated that he was interested in the question, Spector never provided an example of a navy with inferior technology besting an opponent that used superior technology. While Spector admirably demonstrated the importance of human factors in modern naval warfare, it is clear that technology – particularly technological differentials between opponents – has played an important role in naval warfare and must be considered closely along side human factors.

Review copyright 2009 J. Andrew Byers

Ronald Spector’s Eagle against the Sun is both the best one-volume history of the Pacific theater of World War II I have encountered as well as a model for other operational histories. As with most other ambitious operational accounts – particularly for subjects as vast as the Pacific campaign – this is primarily a narrative rather than analytical account, and its strength lies not in new interpretations or revelations of previously undisclosed information. (Spector did take a strong position on some contested areas, however, including a solid debunking of MacArthur’s “genius.”) Spector did make several well-documented arguments based on his research. First, Spector argued that the American two-pronged approach was the product of interservice rivalries – neither the army nor the navy wanted to have their forces commanded by a member of the other service – and because MacArthur, as a towering figure in the public eye, had to be given a command. The two-pronged strategy thus emerged as a solution to these problems rather than as a strategy that was initially preferred. Second, Spector argued that victory over Japan was less a matter of strategic brilliance than a result of efficient logistical solutions and resource allocations. The Americans’ resource constraints heavily shaped their strategic decisions and led to a war of attrition, eventually leading to the defeat of Japan. This is an eminently readable (exciting, even) and thorough account of a complex set of operations. This may not be a definitive history in the sense that a multi-volume history could provide another level or two of detail beyond this work, but Spector’s well-organized and -synthesized account made as few compromises as are necessary to fit the war into a single volume. It is also important to note the book’s subtitle: The American War with Japan. This volume contains the American perspective on the war; those looking for a truly comparative account of the war will have to look elsewhere (I am skeptical that such a work even exists, however).

High recommended.

Review copyright 2009 J. Andrew Byers

Overall, I liked the book. I think the author did a pretty good job starting at Pearl Harbor and leading up to the dropping of the atomic bombs and the Japanese surrender. If you want an all around view of the Pacific theater and the major battles from an American perspective, this book gets the job done.

I only have 2 issues with the book. Were it not for these 2 things, I probably would have given it 5 stars as I think the author did a phenomenal job from the source citing standpoint. First, I think there should have been a few maps included with the book. There is a general map encompassing the Pacific theater, but that's it. Normally, I don't care about maps when reading history books. However, in a book covering this many battles and operations, you either have to have very good visualization skills or spend time in other sources tracking down maps. Second, and to me the most important issue, was the matter of the author's apparent distaste for Gen MacArthur. Valid points were made in terms of MacArthur's decisions or his political maneuvering. I don't deny the man had faults. I also don't believe he was the savior of the war in the Pacific as some would have you believe. Be fair though. I got the impression that even if General MacArthur walked on water, the author would still find something to criticize him about. For example, what bearing did the WAAC's in Australia have to do with prosecuting the war? I didn't get the scandal that the author tried to put forth and fault MacArthur for. It seemed like a straw man argument to bolster the author's case against MacArthur.

In the end though, I highly recommend this book. I thought it was broken up into decent sized portions and the author didn't fall into the trap of dehumanizing the Japanese soldiers no matter how fanatical they were. That tends to make it a bit more like reading history and less like reading propaganda.

An episodic history of naval combat in the 20th century, beginning with the demolition of the Russian fleet by the Japanese at Tsushima (1905) and ending with the first Gulf War (1991). It is more comprehensive, and thus in many ways more useful, than the equivalent section (about 3/4 of the book) of John Keegan's Price of Admiralty.

Spector's history fills a valuable role in the historiography of World War II. There are better books on the naval war, better books on the air war, and better books on the land war . . . not to mention books that integrate British, Australian, and Chinese conributions to the defeat of Japan. Decades after its publication, however, I know of no book that deals with this particular subject (the US-Japan war of 1941-45 in all its dimensions) with the skill and assurance of this one.

20th century/History/History - Military / War/History: World/Military - Naval/Modern - 20th Century/Naval History - Modern/Naval art and science/Naval history, Modern/Sailors