Map, Diagram, Drawing and Chart List Notes and Additional Resources Acknowledgments Introduction and Background PART I: Meiji Restoration: 1868 PART II: Japan Versus America and the World: 1931 – 1941 PART III: Hirohito’s Whirlwind Conquests: December 1941 – June 1942 PART IV: ‘Victory Disease’: Japan’s Reversal of Fortune: June – Dec 1942 PART V: Toil and Sweat: the Pacific, India, Burma, & China: Jan 1943 – June 1944 PART VI: Japan’s Forces of Empire Annihilated: June 1944 – Feb 1945 PART VII: Destruction of Japan’s Homeland: February 1945 – Aug 1945 Index
A thorough and meticulously detailed survey of one of the key theatres of the Second World War.
Francis Pike is a historian, journalist and specialist in Asian economics, politics and history and is author of Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II (2009).
Magnificent … Hirohito’s War by Francis Pike sets a new standard:
oceanic in scope, comprehensive in detail, subtle in dissection,
magisterial in organisation and consistently readable.
*The Spectator*
Francis Pike's monumental new book, a thoughtful and detailed
synthesis of the English-language secondary scholarship on the war,
is a welcome addition to the work on the period ... [A]n immensely
valuable and thoughtful synthesis.
*New Statesman*
Pike’s book is an extraordinary achievement; it is as definitive as
any single volume history of the Pacific War can be. As the title
suggests, Pike does not let Japanese Emperor Hirohito off the hook
for the battles fought in his name. Pike sets the fighting firmly
in the context of the regional tensions that had been developing
for some time before any combat took place, not least as a result
of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The book covers all the
major campaigns and battles of the war, from Pearl Harbor to
Hiroshima, but also pays close attention to often overlooked
topics, such as the Burma Campaign (which pitted the British and
the Chinese against Indian, Japanese, and Thai forces) and the
Chinese resistance to Japan. Pike’s analysis is careful but never
dry, and he pens lively portraits of his main characters.
*Foreign Affairs*
Pike's study of the Pacific War is the most comprehensive and
readable account of this epic conflict to date. Unlike most
previous historical examinations, which concentrate on only one or
two dimensions, Pike devotes equal time to the war in China and the
Burma-India Theater as well as MacArthur's southwestern Pacific
campaign and King/Nimitz island hopping in the central Pacific.
Pike does not evade controversial topics and is highly judgmental
of war leaders on all sides. He sees Douglas MacArthur as a prima
donna more concerned with his own image than with winning the war.
Even worse, according to Pike the narcissism of General Joseph
Stilwell was largely responsible for the eventual triumph of
communism in China…[T]his is an excellent overview of the Pacific
War that should be in all public and university libraries … Summing
Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.
*CHOICE*
Pike offers a spectrum of fresh perspectives on a war generally
presented in Western terms that minimize Japan's agency. He
addresses the Pacific conflicts in WWII in the context of a
comprehensive century-long struggle for dominance over the Pacific.
Within that framework, Pike establishes Hirohito's central position
in 'the mythology of Japanese exceptionalism.' ... Pike's
integrated analysis of Japan's simultaneous victories in Malaya,
Burma, Philippines, and Dutch East Indies presents them as a
virtuoso performance unsurpassed in modern warfare. Yet these
victories resulted in a strategic overreach, due to Japan's belief
that quick victories would be followed by rapid settlement ... Pike
tells the epic story on a fitting scale.
*Publishers Weekly*
In Hirohito's War, Francis Pike surveys the secondary literature on
the Pacific War ... offer[ing] a refreshingly non-US perspective
... [The book] contains important insights.
*Times Literary Supplement*
This momentous occurrence is covered in extraordinary detail in
Francis Pike’s new book Hirohito's War: The Pacific War, 1941-1945.
… This volume appears intended to be the definitive work on the
Pacific war and succeeds in being just that.
*WWII History Magazine*
[Pike] has spared no effort in creating what is likely to stand as
the definitive reference book for students of the Pacific War. The
book contains a wealth of detail on subjects such as logistics, the
economic situation of the chief belligerent powers, submarine
warfare, and the dreaded kamikazes.
*Military History Monthly*
Drawing on the most up-to-date scholarship as well as a broad range
of first person accounts, Francis Pike offers readers a
comprehensive, vivid, and fast paced history of Hirohito’s War from
the frontiers of India to the plains of Manchuria, and across the
trackless stretches of the Pacific. Pike is equally at home in
discussing high politics, strategy, and tactical maneuver. His
attention to the logistical requirements of war fought on such a
vast scale is especially welcome as is his unflinching discussion
of the major historical and moral debates that emerged from the
conflict.
*Marc Gallicchio, Professor of History, Villanova University,
USA*
Francis Pike, drawing on a wide array of English-language sources,
has written an encyclopedic book about Japan’s World War II and its
enemies’ response. He gives many pages to the most important
battles of the war, and also describes some that have not been
widely discussed before. I particularly recommend his sections on
General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s campaign to seize Singapore in
1941-42, and on Field Marshal William Slim’s efforts to retake
Burma in 1944-45. I also enjoyed his verbal snapshots of Japanese,
Chinese, British, and American commanders in the war. He not only
paints portraits of the most famous commanders such as Douglas
MacArthur and William Halsey, but also of some of the lesser known
ones such as William Slim and Raymond Spruance. This is not a book
to take down in one gulp; the reader benefits by absorbing it bit
by bit, a few hundred pages at a time.
*Richard Smethurst, University of Pittsburgh, USA*
In Hirohito’s War, The Pacific War 1941 – 1945, Francis Pike has
produced a detailed, meticulously researched, highly readable
synthesis of the Second World War in East Asia and the Pacific.
Always fully in command of his sources, Pike has skillfully woven a
vast amount of information into a lucid, coherent narrative. The
introductory chapters, which trace the long and short term causes
of the war, provide a useful historical background to readers
unfamiliar with East Asian history. In the remaining chapters, Pike
naturally gives most space to the epic struggle between the United
States and Japan, but he also devotes much attention to the Chinese
contribution to the war effort, usually neglected or ignored
completely in the standard accounts of the conflict. While
providing a blow-by-blow account of military operations, Pike also
analyzes the quality of military leadership in refreshingly
iconoclastic fashion. Thus he lambastes the monumental incompetence
of British generals in Malaya and Singapore, is harshly but
justifiably critical of idols such as General MacArthur, Admiral
Halsey and Admiral Yamamoto, but pays homage to the brilliance and
daring of generals such as Yamashita Tomoyuki, the Tiger of Malaya
and William Slim. Pike’s book can be read from cover to cover as
narrative history but will also be valuable as a reference work. In
either case, it will be indispensable for every serious student of
military and East Asian history as well as the general reader.
*Christopher W. A. Szpilman, Professor of Modern Japanese History
and International Relations, Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan*
Francis Pike’s Hirohito’s War, The Pacific War, 1941-1945 is a
major scholarly work and accomplishes a great many things to
advance an understanding of the massive war between Japan and the
United States. In fact, through the depth, breadth, and scope of
research, factual conclusions, and stories, the work tries to be
everything to everyone. The strengths of the work come screaming
forward to a reader by effectively conveying an understanding of
how and why Japanese leaders decided to go forward with a seemingly
illogical decision to fight the industrial juggernaut of the United
States. The portrayals of the tactical challenges faced by
individual combatants on both sides are worthy of reading and
filled with eye-opening capabilities that will satisfy the most
demanding 'technocrat.'
*David C. Fuquea, U.S. Naval War College, USA*
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