Empires on the Pacific: World War Ii and the Struggle for the Mastery of Asia - Hardcover

Thompson, Robert S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 046508575X ISBN 13: 9780465085750

Publisher: Basic Books, 2001

Synopsis

By moving China to center stage, Robert Smith Thompson expands the traditional boundaries of the Pacific Theater of World War II and casts the conflict in an entirely new light. What is commonly viewed as a discrete military conflict between an aggressive Japan with imperial ambitions and a reluctant, passive America now becomes the stuff of Greek tragedy. The overreaching British Empire is waning, yet is unwilling to relinquish its foothold in China, while an increasingly ambitious Japan is determined to dominate the region and conquer China as part of that plan. Enter the young upstart, America, with imperial ambitions of its own in Asia. The United States meant to replace Britain as the dominant power in Asia and saw Japan as a direct threat to that dominance. For Franklin Delano Roosevelt and for the United States, the war with Japan had little to do with revenge for Pearl Harbor. Japan would have to be vanquished so that it would never again be an imperial rival.This recasting of the Asian conflict profoundly alters our understanding not just of World War II in the Pacific but also of what followed in the Korean War and the war in Vietnam. Revisionist history at its best, Empires on the Pacific will provoke discussion and debate and it will alter our view of what many still consider the last "good war."Interest in WWII has never been higher: The summertime release of Touchstone Pictures' blockbuster Pearl Harbor-accompanied by Basic Books' own Pearl Harbor (April 19 release)-will create tremendous interest in the Pacific theater of WWII. Timely publication: The book anticipates the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 2001. Striking, revisionist, controversial: America's wartime actions in the Pacific were not revenge for Pearl Harbor but were part of America's larger imperial ambitions to replace the British Empire as the dominant force in Asia, and, especially, in China. America won the war with Japan but lost the peace, which led, inevitably, to the Korean War and to the war in Vietnam. A long overdue explanation of what America's war against Japan was all about-in a word: China.

About this title

Review

This revisionist history of the Second World War's Pacific theater announces that "the familiar story" we all know in which "the good guys beat the bad guys" isn't really true. In Empires on the Pacific, Robert Smith Thompson describes the "more complicated" version: "Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was not unprovoked," and the war wound up becoming a mere extension of American imperialist aims that had been in place before the shooting started. The United States had two goals in fighting the war. It wanted to crush Japan's military might (a success) and turn China into a post-war ally (a failure). Thompson also wades into more familiar debates, arguing, for instance, that dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary because the Japanese would have surrendered anyway. It must be said that these views won't sway all readers, but they may appeal to many, especially those who admired Day of Deceit by Robert B. Stinnett. --John Miller

About the Author

Robert Smith Thompson teaches at the University of South Carolina. His book A Time for War: FDR and the Path to Pearl Harbor was the first to argue that FDR provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor as a way of justifying America's entry into World War II.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 046508575X
• ISBN 13: 9780465085750
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448