The Last Great Victory: The End of World War II, July/August 1945 - Hardcover

Weintraub, Stanley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525936874 ISBN 13: 9780525936879

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1995

Synopsis

Recounts the final thirty days of the war, focusing on the momentous meeting of President Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at Potsdam to end the war, the last-minute diplomacy with the Japanese, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb. 25,000 first printing. BOMC. History Bk Club.

About this title

About the Author

Stanley Weintraub is Evan Pugh Professor of Arts and Humanities at Penn State.

Reviews

In an action-packed narrative, Weintraub (Disraeli) describes the portentous 30 final days of WWII. The Germans had already surrendered and the Japanese, facing an unconditional-surrender ultimatum, stoically prepared to resist an Allied invasion that would have dwarfed the Normandy landings. The testing of the first atomic bomb and the dropping of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively?covered here in suspenseful detail?rendered the invasion unnecessary. Weintraub describes how the news was received in various quarters?President Truman, returning from the Potsdam Conference, "almost ran as he walked about the ship spreading the news"?and follows it up with a detailed account of the Japanese surrender and the start of the American occupation. On the U.S. home front, there was widespread fear of unemployment because of the abrupt cancellation of military procurement orders; block parties in working-class neighborhoods welcomed homecoming GIs; but in San Francisco, the victory celebration turned ugly: 12 deaths, thousands injured, hundreds of rapes. Weintraub concludes that the war produced as many crises as it settled but may have made world wars obsolete. His meticulous account deserves a wide audience. Illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From July 15, the day the Big Three assembled at Potsdam, through August 15, the day Emperor Hirohito euphemistically admitted to his subjects that the war "developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage," the epochal climax to World War II ran its course. Weintraub presents this riveting, globally framed, blow-by-blow account of those 30 days, patterned after his popular Long Day's Journey into War: December 7, 1941 (1991). Four years later, gigantic events are remembered: millions of Germans flee from the vengeful Communists; a million or so Russian POWs in Western custody are forced back to Stalin's care and to certain imprisonment or death; the dictator negotiates his steely version of realpolitik with Truman and Churchill and Atlee; the Trinity test lights up Alamogordo ("the Second Coming in Wrath," Churchill called it); the Enola Gay annihilates Hiroshima; the Russians pour into Manchuria; and Hirohito makes a decisive intervention to stop his government's dithering about surrender--sparking a suicidal revolt by the ultramilitarists. Weintraub paces the stories so well that even though we know what will happen, it feels as if anything could happen--even the projected invasions of Kyushu and Honshu. Ranging through this material like a master historical novelist, Weintraub intensifies the powerful impact of this, the real historical thing. Libraries need not have every anniversary title pushed forward by the publishers, but they must have this one. Gilbert Taylor

In the same format as the author's Long Day's Journey into War: December 7, 1941 (LJ 9/1/91), this book examines the last month of the war through a creative combination of overview and individual recollection. Presenting the events on a daily basis, the author leads up to the Potsdam Conference and the end of the war in Europe. The scene shifts to the Pacific theater and bloody combat that led to the U.S. island victories, the plans for invading Japan, and the agonizing decision to employ the atomic bomb, not once but twice. Meticulously detailed accounts capture the diplomatic maneuverings and political infighting, from the war-weary Winston Churchill and freshman President Truman to the news reports of an invalided naval officer named John F. Kennedy. Strongly recommended for all collections.?David Lee Poremba, Detroit P.L.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0525936874
• ISBN 13: 9780525936879
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 752