From Publishers Weekly
The author of this intriguing study maintains that the traditional view that America entered WW II in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor is misguided. Thompson argues instead that the U.S. was engaged in a naval war with Germany and an economic war with Japan well before December 7, 1941, and that American support for the Chinese, Lend-Lease aid to Britain and the July '41 oil embargo against Japan were calculated incitements that forced the two Axis powers into war with America. According to Thompson, the Roosevelt administration, far from neutral or isolationist, was increasingly dominated by a coalition of interventionists who wished to establish a new world order under United States leadership. This book is the clearest exposition so far of the revisionist theory of U.S. provocation of Germany and Japan. Thompson teaches foreign policy at the University of South Carolina. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Cover blurbs announce this book's dual intentions: to present an epic account of events leading to Pearl Harbor in the manner of Barbara Tuchman, to whom the publisher draws comparison, and to indict Roosevelt for provoking the Japanese attack. Nothing on the inside pages, though, brings Tuchman to mind. The narrative is a clumsy and piebald affair, with no power over the reader. Nor is the historical argument tidier or more successful. Jonathan Utley's Going to War with Japan ( LJ 5/1/85) is a more effective recent critique of Roosevelt's policies. Waldo Heinrichs's Threshold of War ( LJ 10/1/88) is a more balanced scholarly study of U.S. belligerency. R.J. Overy's The Road to War ( LJ 5/1/90) is a better popular account of the war's origins. Pass on this.
- Robert F. Nardini, North Chichester, N.H.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Robert F. Nardini, North Chichester, N.H.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
