A convincing analysis of Japan’s role in World War II and a reasonable argument for a logic process that led to the attack...
A re-evaluation of the attack on Pearl Harbor in the context of Japanese regional and domestic politics.
In this debut history book, O’Connell takes a thorough look at Japan’s history and its role in geopolitics in an effort to understand the decisions that led to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The book begins by acknowledging that most World War II histories have considered the attack “preposterous” and counter to all reasonable military and diplomatic objectives. Before offering an unconventional analysis that gives a plausible explanation for the attack, O’Connell takes the reader on a deep dive into Japanese history, from the initial settlement of the islands through the feudal period, the development of relations with the West, and the development of the 20th-century militarist culture, and also places this history within a regional context shaped by Russian, Chinese, and European territorial goals. This Japan-centered approach allows the book to challenge standard interpretations, such as the idea that the country was isolated until the arrival of the U.S. Navy: “Japan was never closed; it simply never approved trade with any Westerners except for the Dutch.” O’Connell maintains that perspective as he links Japan’s military behavior to the evolving British colonial presence, the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and conflicts within the military and political structures, leading to a plausible portrayal of circumstances in which an overt attack on U.S. territory was a logical tactic. Although the prose occasionally gets carried away (“the early United States had Hamilton, Madison, Marshall, and the rest to figure out such things and Washington to reassure everyone, despite the persiflage and occasional violence some of those figures attracted, sometimes from one another”), the book’s arguments do not, and a detailed notes section provides a substantial base of evidence for the assumptions and inferences that underlie the work’s re-evaluation of the standard interpretations of World War II history.
A convincing analysis of Japan’s role in World War II and a reasonable argument for a logic process that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor.Pub Date: July 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5004-5881-2
Page Count: 382
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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