Thoroughly researched, closely argued, utterly convincing—with dramatic irony that is nearly unbearable. (40 b&w...
A meticulous analysis of December 7, 1941, and a ringing defense of Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, the man who faced the blame for that day’s stunning Japanese success.
Gannon (Black May 1943, 1998, etc.) begins with the attack itself—but this is only an adumbration of the fuller description he provides later in his compelling study. (Readers who have seen Michael Bay’s film Pearl Harbor will recognize many events and some dialogue that originated in the myriad documents Gannon quotes.) The author retreats a few years and examines the events and personalities that coalesced at Pearl Harbor. He’s a staunch supporter of Adm. Kimmel: “The words Kimmel and dereliction,” he writes, “were antithetical.” Gannon also chides conspiracy theorists for fanning the flames of the incendiary (and unsupportable) theory that FDR knew in advance of the attack and withheld that intelligence in order to propel the country into WWII. Gannon reviews the increasing tensions between the US and Japan and convincingly shows how the escalating punitive trade restrictions placed on Japan left the US little room to negotiate as the storm clouds gathered. By late July 1941, says Gannon, “There were no more peaceful sanctions at American disposal.” As diplomacy breaks down, Gannon takes us back and forth between Japan and the US, between the architects of the attack and those who (in his view) did the best they could with extremely limited resources. (There were not enough reconnaissance aircraft to explore more than a tiny fraction of the Pacific.) Occasionally, the Tom Clancy in Gannon cannot resist supplying arcane details that impede the flow of his narrative. We learn the following about the takeoff of a PBY: “The two 14-cylinder, 1200 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1830-82 engines on the wing above his head put out a thunderous din.”
Thoroughly researched, closely argued, utterly convincing—with dramatic irony that is nearly unbearable. (40 b&w illustrations, not seen)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6698-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.
A master storyteller’s character-driven account of a storied year in the American Revolution.
Against world systems, economic determinist and other external-cause schools of historical thought, McCullough (John Adams, 2001, etc.) has an old-fashioned fondness for the great- (and not-so-great) man tradition, which may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books. McCullough opens with a courteous nod to the customary villain in the story of American independence, George III, who turns out to be a pleasant and artistically inclined fellow who relied on poor advice; his Westmoreland, for instance, was a British general named Grant who boasted that with 5,000 soldiers he “could march from one end of the American continent to the other.” Other British officers agitated for peace, even as George wondered why Americans would not understand that to be a British subject was to be free by definition. Against these men stood arrayed a rebel army that was, at the least, unimpressive; McCullough observes that New Englanders, for instance, considered washing clothes to be women’s work and so wore filthy clothes until they rotted, with the result that Burgoyne and company had a point in thinking the Continentals a bunch of ragamuffins. The Americans’ military fortunes were none too good for much of 1776, the year of the Declaration; at the slowly unfolding battle for control over New York, George Washington was moved to despair at the sight of sometimes drunk soldiers running from the enemy and of their officers “who, instead of attending to their duty, had stood gazing like bumpkins” at the spectacle. For a man such as Washington, to be a laughingstock was the supreme insult, but the British were driven by other motives than to irritate the general—not least of them reluctance to give up a rich, fertile and beautiful land that, McCullough notes, was providing the world’s highest standard of living in 1776.
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-2671-2
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (1900–45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper’s bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle’s “dense, descriptive style” and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience—a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler’s reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context—Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage—is valuable. Kirkus, at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: “the book doesn’t let the reader down.” Pyle, of course, captures “the human qualities” of men in combat, but he also provides “an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers.” Despite Piehler’s current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), Kirkus in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, “here’s a book that needs no selling.” Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.
Pub Date: April 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-8032-8768-2
Page Count: 513
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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