Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan (Paperback)

~ Ronald Spector (Author) "The failures and successes at Pearl Harbor, as well as those in the coming years of the Pacific War, were to a considerable extent determined..." (more)
Key Phrases: Pearl Harbor, United States, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A historian at the Army Center for Military History, Spector concentrates on the problem of command in the Southern Pacific theaters, the rivalries between the various U.S. armed services and the problem of allocating resources. PW praised his ability to "show how even the most efficiently run campaigns unfold against a background of violent dispute." November
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Spector has done the impossible and done it ,with dazzling brilliance. Mining a warehouse of material with absolute control, he has produced a superbly readable, insightful, gripping, unbiased one-volume history of the American-Japanese war that is at the same time a glorious celebration of the American spirit."

-- Clay Blair. front page. The Washington Post Book World

"The best one-volume history of that complex conflict... No other presents as balanced a view or provides such terse and searching analyses not only of the great battles but of half-forgotten aspects, such as the impact of blacks and female participants on the services...No future book on the Pacific war will be written without paying due tribute to Eagle Against The Sun."

-- Drew Middleton, The New York Times

"Clear, coherent, effective...this is an excellent book... likely to be for a long time to come the standard, comprehensive history of the Pacific Ocean War." -- Russell E Weighley, Temple University. -- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (October 12, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394741013
• ISBN-13: 978-0394741017
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #161,737 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SImply The Best Single-Volume Book About Japan's War!, June 21, 2000

By	Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Good books devoting themselves to the overall scope and breadth of Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War Two are hard to find, but this book solves the reader's problem nicely. It is a comprehensive, entertaining, and fair-minded book that careful details both Japanese and Allied perspectives before, during, and at the conclusion of the war. This book is truly a carefully constructed, exhaustively researched and quite well documented one-volume history that everyone should love. I first discovered it on the syllabus of a graduate-level Harvard history course, and have had it on my shelf ever since. Written in a very accessible style that allows the reader to stream through as though one is reading a novel, and it is filled with interesting anecdotes and new insights that keep the reader entertained and interested throughout the nearly 600 pages of the book. My own personal favorite was an actual complaint filed immediately after the attack at Pearl Harbor by a Hawaiian resident of a dog who was allegedly barking in Morse code to the Japanese ships offshore. It is also offers a number of new thought provoking and intriguing ideas about aspects of the war against Japan for the reader.

The author engages in an active reinterpretation of the war based on declassified intelligence files, archival material, Japanese documents and an impressive collection of interviews with principals involved in the almost five year struggle to defeat the Japanese after the events at Pearl Harbor. It is interesting to learn that the U.S. planned to wage a wide-ranging campaign of submarine attacks against enemy shipping even before the start of the war, and also indicates that MacArthur was lucky not to be unceremoniously dumped after his bad bungling of the defense of the Philippines and also because of his active disregard for a number of important intercepts of Japanese messages that could have saved literally thousands of American and other lives. Spector also reveals that U.S. decisions were often more influenced by the nature of our stormy relationship with our British allies and our own inter-service rivalries than by strategic concerns.

The author vividly conjures up accurate and spell-binding accounts of the major battles of the war, and provides a number of intriguing descriptions of lesser known aspects of the Pacific campaign, as well. He takes the reader on a fascinating whirlwind tour of the war, leaping from details of critical meetings between war planners in the Pentagon to social, economic, and political aspects of the engagement to excellent on-the-scene coverage of the battlegrounds. He shows us how the war against the Japanese was different from that being waged in Europe, and how this intensely naval type of conflict was in a number of ways much more risky and innovative on our part than its European counterpart. I was particularly fascinated by his interesting argument that the most critical Japanese mistake of the war was in allowing itself to be drawn into fighting the war of attrition we had always preferred to wage based on its defeat at Midway. This is an important, magisterial, and comprehensive book that is undoubtedly the single best one-volume treatment of the war against Japan and it belongs on every serious World War Two student's bookshelf. Enjoy!

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The classic story of the Pacific War, February 15, 2001

By	Stephen M. Bainbridge "www.professorbainbridg... (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a history of the Pacific War, Eagle Against the Sun is rivalled only by Samuel Eliot Morison's 15 volume classic. Ironically, however, Spector packs far more detail into this classic one volume narrative than Morison managed to include in 15. Where Morison slighted organization, logistics, and sociological issues in favor of action, Spector gives such issues the attention they deserve. The Pacific War was a war of logistics--moving massive volumes of men and material across thousands of miles of ocean. The Pacific War was also a fascinating study in race and gender relations, with early and problematic evolution towards the modern integrated force. Spector addresses all these issues, while still telling an exciting story of action and heroism.

Spector is eminently well-qualified to write such a history. A Marine Corps veteran (Viet Nam), Spector is also a professional historian. He understands combat as few historians do. Spector is also a talented writer, whose prose flows quickly and powerfully.

Spector's careful analysis of the controversial decision to use atomic weapons against Japan is especially well-done. He acknowledges that there are legitimate arguments--both moral and military--against their use. He notes that critics of the decision included not only left-leaning academics, but also army and navy leaders resisting air force officers who believed that SAC rendered the other branches obsolete. Yet, he persuasively argues that tha atomic bombs, coupled with Russia's invasion of Manchuria, were the exogenous shocks that finally destabilized Japan's militarist regime.

In sum, very highly recommended.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive account, July 25, 1999

By A Customer

Reading about the Pacific War in the new WWII novel, "The Triumph and the Glory", spurred me into exploring the topic further, so I picked up a copy of "Eagle Against the Sun" and was very impressed. It is solidly researched, very readable, all in all one of the better history volumes about the great struggle in the Pacific between the United States and Imperial Japan.