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Pearl Harbor,
by Craig Nelson, describes in a well-researched, engaging
and enlightening narrative, the events leading to, during
and after the attack on Pearl Harbor from both the Japanese
and American perspectives. On the eve of the 75th anniversary
of the attack, Pearl Harbor reminds us how two major Pacific
powers made political decisions that resulted in each side
believing it was wronged, and were pushed into making decisions
that ultimately resulted in a bloody Pacific War. The author
describes in detail the Japanese political and military factions
working against each other to paint the political turmoil
in Japan in the run up to the attack. Numerous contemporary
personal accounts from both sides provide vivid pictures,
views and little known experiences leading up to and during
the attack.
The author puts the attack into its broader geo-political
strategic context as Japan, after being bogged down in China
for a number of years, was systematically planning and executing
the conquest of a significant chunk of South Asia to secure
Japan's economic future. What emerges is the story of two
powers who made fateful political decisions, harbored misconceptions
and ignorance about the intentions and abilities of the other
side to wage war, and who engaged in racial stereotyping about
each other’s abilities. For the United States, Japan's
brutal conquest and continued occupation of China and Manchuria
was the flashpoint between Japan and the United States.
The provocative thesis of the author is that the "America
we live in today was born ... on December 7, 1941." The
war that was fought, its relentless prosecution by the United
States, the profound economic changes caused by the war, and
the war's final outcome, changed the American military, economic
and political landscape to the one we know today. This meant
that the United States could not retreat into isolation and
turn its back on the world as it had done in previous wars.
Both the first time reader and those who are familiar with
Pearl Harbor will find this an engaging and instructive story.
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