The Second World War In The East

Rating:
Summary: An introductory read
Review: Right at the beginning, the author states that there are many other books written about WWII. Hence, he is trying to write this book from a different perspective, by analysing the reasons for the way the Pacific War unfolded rather than to give a straightforward chronological account.
The end result is the same - a chronological account of events as they unfolded.
The analysis is partially successful. Willmott has a rather engaging style of writing and claims to write from an objective perspective with hindsight. The problem here is that he selects his own objectivity.
An example is the following. Nothing about the WWII Pacific campaign was straightforward, even its beginnings. The WWII European campaign's was - the invasion of Poland. Period. The author grudgingly admits that we may trace its roots politically back to the Versailles Treaty. However for the Pacific campaign, he thinks that it started at the Sino-Japanese war 1937, or better still, it started at the Japanese Manchurian war 1931 or even when Japan first emerged as a modern industrialised power.
Furthermore, he would propose a viewpoint and raise a few facts in defending it. The problem is that he sometimes does not state his facts clearly.
There are also a few brouhahas as per the following examples:
Willmott thinks that the Japanese sense of superiority was due to their "mandate from heaven". This concept and term is only associated with Chinese dynastic history and is out of context here.
He believes that many accounts of WWII focus too much on the little things. One example cited was that he thinks that ULTRA's contribution to the Allied success in the Atlantic campaign has been over exaggerated in far too many books. Thus, he completely fails to mention here that breaking the Japanese code led largely to success at Midway as well as other Allied campaigns. In an about twist, he credits the minor contribution of the Allies in Burma as being important to the whole Pacific campaign. The bombing of Pearl Harbour was insignificant militarily, except in propaganda value and in delaying the American naval build up by a few months. Yet the book devotes two large map spreads on four pages, one for each wave of Japanese aircraft.
He spells the town names Selangor as Segolar and the Kokoda Trail is perverted thruout as the Kakoda Trail.
Some of the accompanying maps are oversimplified. Some are beautiful. Therein lies the problem - these series of books attempt too much - a structured text with numerous illustrations to appeal to the general public. The problem is that there is a perceived imbalance between text and illustrations.
There is no space for thoughtful analysis nor revisionist thinking which might be better served elsewhere.