Rating: 
Summary: History not preordained ... ?
Review: "Rising Sun Victorious" explores a number of alternative paths that might -- or might not -- have allowed the Japanese to "win" against the United States. Anyone interested in reflecting on the vagaries of choices and happenstance in modern military conflict would find this an enjoyable read -- every author is qualified to write the actual history and most have written quite engaging alternatives.From my perspective, perhaps the most intriquing is Wade Dudley's "Plan Orange Disaster". In this case, the Japanese decide to create a massive trap for the U.S. execution of the planned move across the Pacific with the entire battle fleet in the opening months of the war to rescue the Philippines. As Dudley writes this, the disaster is so great that Roosevelt must agree to a peace with Japan to allow the war against Hitler to proceed. If we think this way, the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor might be well viewed as facilitating victory in several ways (not new to this review) -- from the wakening of the slumbering giant of the United States to the forcing of the U.S. Navy / military to adapt the prewar plans to the reality of the Pacific in 1941. I found this a worthwhile diversion that left me thinking differently than when I opened the book. From my perspective, that is the mark of a very worthwhile read!
Rating:
Summary: History not preordained ... ?
Review: "Rising Sun Victorious" explores a number of alternative paths that might -- or might not -- have allowed the Japanese to "win" against the United States. Anyone interested in reflecting on the vagaries of choices and happenstance in modern military conflict would find this an enjoyable read -- every author is qualified to write the actual history and most have written quite engaging alternatives. From my perspective, perhaps the most intriquing is Wade Dudley's "Plan Orange Disaster". In this case, the Japanese decide to create a massive trap for the U.S. execution of the planned move across the Pacific with the entire battle fleet in the opening months of the war to rescue the Philippines. As Dudley writes this, the disaster is so great that Roosevelt must agree to a peace with Japan to allow the war against Hitler to proceed. If we think this way, the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor might be well viewed as facilitating victory in several ways (not new to this review) -- from the wakening of the slumbering giant of the United States to the forcing of the U.S. Navy / military to adapt the prewar plans to the reality of the Pacific in 1941. I found this a worthwhile diversion that left me thinking differently than when I opened the book. From my perspective, that is the mark of a very worthwhile read!
Rating:
Summary: Fiction presented as history
Review: Along with such books as 'The Hitler options' and 'Disaster at D-Day' one of the classics of the AH stories, written as if this were a history book.
I would recommend this book to everyone interested in (WW2) history and AH in general, but do remember this isn't a collection of short-stories with fictional characters,so it can get a tat too technical if you're not a history freak.
To me, the only downside was that the Rising Sun isn't always victorious in this book.Some stories tell the story of a (relatively small ) tactical victory of the Japanse followed by a strategic defeat or explanation why this victory won't suffice to win the war.If I want to read about Japan losing WW2,I'll read a history book.But remember :to me, that is the ONLY downside.
Rating:
Summary: 10 Battles the Japanese might have won
Review: Alternative history is all the rage these days, largely fueled by Harry Turtledove's books supposing a Confederate victory in the Civil War. The present book is a more scholarly collection of essays on the premise of the Japanese winning parts of the Second World War that they actually lost. The format of the book is interesting. Each chapter (there are ten altogether) is a look at a different part of the War in the Pacific, and supposes that the Japanese somehow did better in that portion of the war than they actually did. The first interesting part of this is that just because the authors of the various scenarios in the book have the Japanese win another battle doesn't mean that they're allowed to win the whole conflict. Instead, the authors seem more interested in what effect the Japanese victory would have on the course of the war. The individual scenarios examine everything from possible Japanese attacks on Siberia, California, India, and Australia, all around to the revelation that their codes were broken, and defeats in the battles of Leyte Gulf or even the invasion of Japan itself. While the idea for each scenario is similar, the format of the articles differs somewhat from one to the next. The last one, for instance, purports to be a recounting of a conference at the Naval War College where various admirals and generals discuss what went wrong with the invasion of Japan. Amusingly, each of the authors provides footnotes to his essay, and some of them are concocted for the essay itself. Japanese authors who actually wrote books about their participation in the Japanese defeat instead write about their victory. It's rather amusing. I enjoyed this book a great deal. I will agree to an extent with the reviewers who complained about the technical nature of the narrative. I will also point out however that the book doesn't pretend to be anything other than an alternative *history*. It's not Turtledove, and no one said it was. Great fun if you're into military history.
Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable read
Review: I found this book to be quite interesting. Most of the major turning points of the Pacific War are dealt with in a light that gives Japan the edge. One or two of the stories are just too far out. This is not the fault of the fictional Japanese, but of the authors who sometimes place a convenient spy here or your odd task force there, where there was not and could not have been in the war. Also slightly distracting is was appears at first glance to be a sloppy editing job i.e. three or more ways to spell Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku's name. The price, in retrospect, seems a bit prohibitive as well, but overall it is a very interesting book for any student of Japan, military history, or wargamer.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Option
Review: I would like to check with the experts that developed these scenarios to see if another option could be established. This new option is a variation of Germany's use of Russians to topple Stalin. The Japanese develope a clique of anti-Chiang Kaishek Chinese to establish a united China allied with Japan, not a vassal state. I enjoyed this book and the companion book on ways Hitler could have won the war.
Rating: 
Summary: A Tad Too Technical for This General Reader
Review: In general, counterfactual (aka "alternate") history tend s to revolve around military engagements, and thus military history. This can range from over-the-top novels in which time-travelers go back to help the Confederacy win the Civil War, to obscure technical monographs by experts delving into the most obscure corners of the past. The best of these reimaginings tend to fall somewhere in between, for example the collection "What If: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been." Given that most of the authors of this particular volume are current or former military personnel, it understandably resides more in the specialist's camp. The essays all seek to examine alternate Japanese strategies in the Pacific, while maintaining as much similarity to reality as possible, in terms of weather, personalities, available forces, etc. Unfortunately, the writing is often a shade too technical to be of interest to the general reader, and when the authors do try and break out of the dry history mode, the prose gets rather hackneyed. The most interesting scenarios were editor Tsouras's look at what might have occurred had the Japanese focused on attacking the Soviet Union instead of the U.S., and Frank Shirer's look as the ramifications of a third wave attack on Pearl Harbor. A number of the other essays were too technical in a maritime sense for me to get into. All in all, if you're deep into naval military history, it's definitely worth a read, but for the general reader, it's probably too detailed a collection.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting set of alternate military scenarios
Review: In this book, part of an alternate history series from Greenhill books, ten military historians describe how Japanese campaigns in World War Two might have had different outcomes. Scenarios addressed range from the Russo-Japanese front to attacks on California and the Japanese conquest of India. Each chapter ends with a section entitled The Reality for contrast. The editor deserves congratulations for maintaining a high level of consistency among papers by different authors, generally avoiding overlap or duplication. The only exception is the last chapter (on the invasion of Japan's home islands), which is awkwardly and unconvincingly cast as as a lecture with questions and answers. The book includes maps of varying quality and a section of photographs from the Pacific war. Rising Sun Victorious, which includes detailed descriptions of military campaigns and battles, is for readers with a serious interest in military history.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting set of alternate military scenarios
Review: In this book, part of an alternate history series from Greenhill books, ten military historians describe how Japanese campaigns in World War Two might have had different outcomes. Scenarios addressed range from the Russo-Japanese front to attacks on California and the Japanese conquest of India. Each chapter ends with a section entitled The Reality for contrast. The editor deserves congratulations for maintaining a high level of consistency among papers by different authors, generally avoiding overlap or duplication. The only exception is the last chapter (on the invasion of Japan's home islands), which is awkwardly and unconvincingly cast as as a lecture with questions and answers. The book includes maps of varying quality and a section of photographs from the Pacific war. Rising Sun Victorious, which includes detailed descriptions of military campaigns and battles, is for readers with a serious interest in military history.
Rating:
Summary: Plausible counterfactuals believably presented
Review: It's hard to know what to make of 'counterfactuals' like the ones in this collection. The best alternative histories are the ones that run closest to what actually happened -- until the point where the author chooses the path untaken. From that standpoint, the ten stories in 'Rising Sun Victorious' are quite well done. Written by skilled military historians, none of these counterfactuals presume anything outside the realm of possibility (no aliens or time travel here). Like scientists testing different theories, historians can use counterfactuals to shine new light on personalities and events. But not all historians start from the same premises. For example, Wade G. Dudley, one of the authors in this collection, notes 'it is difficult to imagine any simple set of circumstances that would have allowed Japan to win any form of victory in World War II' -- America's population and industrial strength inevitably would prevail eventually. On the other hand, James R. Arnold, another contributor, points out that if the bomb that struck USS Yorktown at Coral Sea had hit just twenty feet closer to her centerline, her flight deck would have been out of action for Midway -- with dire consequences for the US Navy. Counterfactuals are interesting; not just for the light they bring to history, but also for the way they illuminate the workings of historians' minds. As in any collection, the quality of the chapters in 'Rising Sun Victorious' vary from author to author. I didn't find any of the submissions to be outright bad, but some were better written than others, some more plausible than others. As another reviewer notes, a few of the writers base their counterfactuals on obscure points in history. A general reader unfamiliar with the war in the Pacific may well not be able to tell where history and fiction part company. The specialist, however, can find between these covers much food for thought. One of the games authors of counterfactuals play is inventing alternate biographies for real individuals. Attentive readers will note references to President Elmo Zumwalt, obscure naval memoirist 'G. Bush,' and a biography of Admiral Halsey by Dr John P. Ryan of the US Naval Academy, among others.
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