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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Superb Analysis of a Critical Event in American History, May 10, 2007
"A Date Which Will Live" is both a stimulating and accessible history of how the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has been remembered and a sterling example of the employment of the theory of memory in history and postmodern analysis. The author, now a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, had fashioned a compelling narrative of how Americans have related to the experience of Pearl Harbor in the latter half of the twentieth century. She divides her narrative into two parts, the first dealing with the memory of the experience from December 7, 1941, until the end of the cold war. Her second part discusses the difficult battles over recollections of the World War II experience that took place in the 1990s, largely at the time of their fiftieth anniversaries.
Twin themes inform this narrative. The first is one of "infamy," the immediate reaction to the attack in 1941--President Franklin D. Roosevelt used that terminology in announcing the attack to the American public--and it has been a critical component of the memory of the event ever since. This has been a dominant strain in the recollection, and both popular and scholarly accounts point to duplicity on the part of the Japanese to undertake a surprise attack, demolish the American Pacific fleet, and conquer the bulk of the Asian-Pacific region. Rosenberg does an outstanding job of tracing the charges and recriminations on both sides over who was responsible for the war, and who was rthe bad actor both in causing and in conducting it.
A second theme is one of "deceit," not so much on the part of the Japanese although it is sometimes invoked there as well but on the part of FDR and other key strategists in the U.S. government who sought to maneuver the U.S. into a war with Hitler's Germany. This "back door to war" argument arose soon after the Pearl Harbor attack and has shown remarkable staying power. It suggests that FDR wanted to enter the war in Europe on the side of Great Britain but American isolationists prevented his doing so. He goaded the Japanese into an attack, and considerable circumstantial evidence has been assembled to argue that he even knew in advance that the attack was coming but chose not to warn the Pacific Fleet so that U.S. entry into the war would be assured. Despite overwhelming contrary evidence, and a preponderance of historical analysis debunking this conspiracy theory, it continues to have adherents, even arising in the 1990s as a congressional mandate for the Naval Historical Center to investigate the issue one more time. Rosenberg does an excellent job of telling this story, noting the point/counterpoint of the arguments, and offering sober judgment on the current state of the controversy. This aspect of the book is one of the most satisfying in the work as a whole.
Rosenberg also traces the manner in which the attack has been depicted in a succession of important feature films that have influence popular ideas about Hearl Harbor. These include such works as the wartime documentary made about the attack, in which the striking imagery known to all who have watched even a handful of documentaries on the subject were not actually of the attack itself, but a recreation undertaken in Hollywood. It also includes powerful films such as the 1950s film "From Here to Eternity," the 1960s film "In Harm's Way," the 1970s "Tora, Tora, Tora," and the recent "Pearl Harbor." All have affects on public conceptions of the attack in ways much more significant than most historians like to admit.
Finally, "A Date Which Will Live" offers a complex portrait of an event and its recollection in modern America. Rosenberg writes about the manner in which the recollection of Pearl Harbor fit into the larger history wars of the 1990s. She argued that "the most heated debates generally pitted the country's associations of academic historians against groups of political and cultural conservatives..." (p. 132). As she concluded, "At heart was the question of who had the right (and the power) to claim privileged knowledge of the past. Pro-military lobbying groups, cultural conservatives, and congressional critics railed that historians were `revising' history to suit current agendas; many historians railed back that partisan groups were seeking to `revise' history into popular oversimplifications" (pp. 132-33). So much of this effort was oriented toward what Rosenberg called a "final judgment" of the event in American history. Of course, such an ultimate statement is impossible in any historical debate.
"A Date Which Will Live" is a most welcome addition to the literature of the memory of World War II. One could make the case, and Rosenberg does, that perception and memory of an historic event might be more important than what actually occurred. It is the perception and memory that provoke response in the endless dialogue between the past and the present. Enjoy this well-written and provocative book on an important subject in twentieth century history.
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