A useful resource for serious students of World War II.
An in-depth account of the denouement of the Pacific phase of World War II.
WWII veteran and historian Heinrichs (Emeritus, History/San Diego State Univ.; Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II, 1988, etc.) and Gallicchio (History/Villanova Univ.; The Scramble for Asia: U.S. Military Power in the Aftermath of the Pacific War, 2008, etc.) begin in early 1944, as American forces began to shift from containment of Japanese advance to a sustained offensive. The goals were twofold: recovering territory lost in the initial Japanese expansion and forcing a Japanese capitulation. Several factors complicated the process: the determination of the Japanese to fight to the last man; the continuing war on the European front; rivalries between the Army and Navy; and the political situation at home. The authors give each due consideration. Descriptions of the battles make it clear how high the cost of the Japanese strategy was. In most of the battles, the Americans faced well-sited defensive positions designed to extract as many casualties as possible. Only toward the end of the war did significant numbers of Japanese troops surrender, but at the same time, the kamikaze attacks were causing enormous damage to the American fleet. Meanwhile, the European war’s demands for personnel and supplies limited the resources available to the U.S. commanders in the Pacific, who were already at odds over how best to prepare for the apparently inevitable invasion of Japan. Back in the U.S., much energy was being expended on the questions of how to quickly return to a peacetime economy and how to return the veterans of Europe’s war to their civilian lives. Harry Truman and his new administration wrestled with these issues, which were exacerbated by a sense that the population would not support a drawn-out siege of Japan. The authors’ handling of these questions, which ultimately led to the atomic bombing of Japan, is more interesting than their sometimes-ponderous coverage of the battles. Substantial documentation, much of it from Japanese sources, adds value.
A useful resource for serious students of World War II.Pub Date: June 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-061675-5
Page Count: 728
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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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