Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding Primary Source
Review: Thirty years later, John Toland's work is still setting the standard for excellence. This book is no exception. The author is able to make history come alive, portraying events and personalities in a manner that allows the reader to grasp the subjective details that influenced the history of that time. History, it is often forgotten, is made and delivered by men and women whose subjective experience has a lingering impact on culture and society.
His focus on the little details does not impinge on the larger picture. His sources are exhaustive and impeccable. While he has garnered some criticism over his neglect of some events ( such as Nanjing and other Japanese atrocities ) and personalities ( Roosevelt and Cordell Hull, for example), these complaints usually stem from a belief that Mr. Toland was pro-Japanese and out to deconstuct the American actions.
This is sure nonsense. This books compensates for the bulk of standard history, much of which still carries on with attempts to demonize the Japanese and honor the American decisions and actions of that time. The sheer hubris and lack of a REAL central intelligence authority in the United States prior to Pearl Harbor, as well the Americans' complete inability to understand their adverseries are all portrayed in stunning detail.
After 9/11 and events since, this book has become even more poignant. A necessity for any thinking person's library. An outstanding piece of work that has stood its first trial of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating narrative of Japanese military expansion .
Review: This book is a fascinating narrative of the Japanese military expansion and ensuing involvement in the second world war. More than a simple military history, this books takes you into the inner circles of Japanese politics of the time to understand how Japan half stumbled, half lunged into a completely self destructive war with the United states. Important emphasis is given to the lack of understanding between Japan and the West due to ignorance of cultural differences by all parties and how this accelerated the rush to war and delayed the final peace. Toland also had the rare advantage of actually interviewing some of the surviving important Japanese role players. The one possible weakness of the book is that it presents an overtly sympathetic view of the Japanese and glosses over Japanese atrocities of the period.
Rating:
Summary: One of best accounts of what went on in Japan during the war
Review: This book looks at World War II from the Japanese perception. In its well written and well researched form, John Toland managed to create a book that would give readers how things look from the Japanese side of the war. The book covers all aspects of Japanese history from 1936 to the end of the war. This includes political in-fighting within the Japanese government during the 1930s where the members of the Japanese military were murdering politicans who stood in their way. The picture the author painted wasn't a very pretty one. Japan appears to be nearly schizophrenic in her behavioral pattern before and during the war with the United States. The book revealed Japan's attitude toward the United States with a mixture of opposite contradictions. On one hand, Japanese leaders understood that the Uniteds States is far more powerful then the Japan in almost every aspects of military production and manpower but yet believed that victory against the United States is possible due to spiritual paramountcy. This decision come about despite of the heavy Japanese military commitments on the Asian mainland. The book also reflects on the noblity of the Japanese effort to survived the war as well as her barbaric actions toward her enemies. In many ways, it shows the two sided coin of Japan. Japan that can be noble and generous as well as the Japan who can be cruel and maleficence.This is a pretty thick book but its also very readable. The author's prose is smooth and its one of these heavy books that most well trained readers can breeze through with certain amount of joy. For would be historians out there, probably a required reading material for anyone who have any interest in the war against Japan, it might do good for any Japanese out there to read it too if they can get a Japanese language translation verison.
Rating:
Summary: WWII from the Japanese point of view
Review: This is a monumental piece of work. The author has managed to craft hundreds of sources into one single narrative that reads like an epic novel. The book begins from Japan's involvement into China right up to the Allies' occupation after her surrender. Since history is mainly dictated by the victors, objective works from the point of view of the defeated countries are often hard to come by. John Toland has managed to do a great job in filling this void, giving us a rare glimpse as to the whens, whys and hows of Japan's decision to get herself into an ultimately disastrous war. If you are a WWII enthusiast, and have read mainly accounts written by American or British authors, then this book will fill in a lot of the gaps. If anything, it's enlightening to read the other side of the story to any conflict. Very highly recommended. Find a used copy today!
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: This tome regarding the pacific war with emphasis on the japanese perspective was incredible. I could not put this book down and what an investment in broadening my knowledge on this topic. I do believe Toland was a master story teller and this book moves along at a very nice pace. Yes the first 200 pages are devoted to Japanese politics prior to pearl harbour but it puts everything that follows in great perspective and all the personalities involved. I can't praise this book enough.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary history
Review: Toland's history of the rise and fall of Imperial Japan is so good that it is difficult to praise adequately. The story itself is so outlandish, bizarre, and terrifying that it would be unbelievable as fiction, yet it reads better than most novels. Toland is an excellent writer and tells his complex story exceedingly well. He interviewed hundreds of people for this work, an incredible expenditure of time and energy, and his historical sources are well referenced.
Toland hasn't made any major errors in substance, so far as I can see, but his interpretations do have a pro-Japanese bias, in that he wants Japan to get a fair hearing. I think that is a legitimate goal, but those who were Japan's direct victims would have, with good reason, difficulty accepting it. It should be kept in mind that whatever the sins of the Japanese government and military during that era, the Japanese people were punished for them many times over as the war evolved.
The early chapters may seem tedious to some readers, but this is due to the complexity of Japanese politics in the 1930's. Toland describes in these chapters something that needs emphasis, and that is the role of political assassination in pre-war Japanese politics. Japanese politicians of that time lived with the knowledge that fanatical young military officers could at any time undo all their work by an assassination, and that there was no way to prevent it so long as the military was in control. A political culture that condones assassination is unlikely to be one in which reason and common sense prevail. Most of the decision makers in the Japanese government, from Konoye and Tojo on down, knew that Japan would inevitably lose an all-out war with the US. Yet until the very end, they all seemed to feel powerless to follow anything other than a suicidal course of action. And at the end, many leaders, including Konoye and Anami, along with numerous military officers, took their own lives. Tojo was unsuccessful in his suicide attempt, and lived to be hanged. Interestingly, he became quite religious before his death, and expressed remorse for the atrocities inflicted by the Japanese Army.
Toland uses first person narratives very effectively to describe the fanaticism and suicidal bravery of the Japanese soldiers, sailors, and pilots; the sufferings of the American POW's; and of the Japanese civilian population under the incendiary and A-bomb attacks on Japan's cities. The overall effect is horrifying; one wonders that anyone survived.
Toland raises many legitimate questions regarding America's role in the Pacific War, from cultural differences to poor translations to overt racism. He ends the book with some interesting reflections on the continuities of misguided American policies and attitudes that led from our war with Japan to our war in VietNam.
A few firm conclusions can be drawn from the war experiences Toland describes so well:
There is no such thing as a "good" war, or if there is, the war in the Pacific was certainly not one of them.
Human courage and endurance transcend race and culture, as do human cruelty and stupidity.
America and Japan were both changed irrevocably by the Pacific War.
Neither nation came out of the war morally intact.
So far, nuclear weapons have not again been used in anger.
One can only hope that our luck continues to hold.
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