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Title: Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan
ISBN: 0394741013
Author:
Ronald Spector
Publicate Date: 1985-10-12
Publish: 1985-10-12
List Price: $18.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.88
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.68
Amazon Merchant Price: $12.89
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Thorough, well-written, objective
Anyone seeking a thorough, well-written and objective account of the U.S. war against Japan should add Ronald Spector's "Eagle Against the Sun'' to their reading list. Spector tackles with obvious verve a difficult task - compressing a four-year war that stretched from the Aleutians to India into 560 pages. You have to admire a historian who uses exclamation marks out of sheer enthusiasm. As someone who is more or less a novice on the Pacific War, several things struck me: I was surprised by the speed with which the allies put Japan on the defensive after Pearl Harbor and started taking back the territories she'd seized. And I was astounded by the extent to which both Japan and the allies were crippled by mistaken intelligence and assumptions - reconnaissance planes misreporting the number and type of enemy ships, Japanese commanders believing their own side's propaganda -- and by bureaucratic wrangling between the branches of their militaries (and, in the allied case, between countries with different priorities). Spector does a good job evaluating commanders' decisions, always taking into account what they knew and which of their assumptions were reasonable even if ultimately wrong.
I came to the book with little knowledge of naval warfare. So I wished early on that Spector had told us how many seamen were lost whenever ships sank. I was stunned by sheer tonnage of shipping that fell victim to bombs, shells, torpedoes and kamikazes; but I didn't know whether to assume that all or most of the crews died when their ships went down. Only occasionally did Spector mention the human toll at sea. I suspect this omission was just designed to avoid cluttering the copy with repetitive information. Elsewhere in the book - describing the experiences of the average GI in the Pacific, for instance - he clearly shows empathy toward the human beings, military and civilian alike, who suffered and died. Another complaint: The version I read contained no maps - a serious handicap for a book covering so much unfamiliar geography.
Upon finishing this book, I immediately started Spector's sort-of sequel, "In the Ruins of Empire.'' "Eagle Against the Sun'' was a not a fluke. The guy's good.
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2: An enthralling book
I was led to this book after reading the author's more recent "In the Ruins of Empire",which greatly clarified my understanding of modern Asia. Eagle against the Sun was daunting in its length and scope but Dr Spector writes with great clarity and momentum; the narrative is never lost and when one does manage to put the book down, one returns to it with pleasurable anticipation always wanting to know what would happen next. The best book of military history that I have ever read. I echo another readers complaint about the miserable map.Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan
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3: missing pages
This book is a pretty good read. I am writing at this moment to complain about the missing pages, 295-342 are missing. This would be a discussion of the Marianas campaign. This is the paperback version, purchased July of '08. Beware the missing pages! Otherwise it is a pretty good read, but for me I prefer a deeper look at each battle, rather than an overview.
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4: Best Single Volume Account of the American War in the Pacific
I read this shortly after the first edition came out. I was taking a year off to travel around the world and I was going to spend a good six months in the South Pacific. Although I had read a lot of history on the war prior to this, I wanted a good general history to tie everything together. I wanted one as in-depth as I could get. From this volume I made again launched into a more detailed reading on individual battles and campaigns.
This book was both admirable in its sweep and it is well written and researched, with a very good attention to detail that one does not often find in general overview books.
The downfall of America and her island-hopping campaign is told with very good balance between the macro-polical objectives -- the machinations, intrigue, inter-service rivalry, and horsetrading -- is balanced nicely wiht the battles themselves and the individual sacrifice of the American soldiers.
The carrier war is a point well described with Spector taking as much time to describe the Midway Battles as he does for the later Marianas "Turkey Shoot." One area I was very pleased to read was the small bit on the American Black troops in the theatre.
The book does not cover America's very limited contribution to the mainland war in Asia, but it does give a very good overview on the discussions and different visions the Americans and British had in the Pacific as a whole. With it being over 40 years since these horrible events unfolded it is worthy to note the Spector also deals with some of the unseemly side of the American war in the Pacific, how it migrated very quickly into a racial war with its concommitent valuation of the Japanese as less than human. From the Marine penchant for killing the few prisoners that were willing to surrender, to the wholesale destruction of Japanese cities by conventional and then Nuclear bombing. All of this said while not loosing sight of the very ugly aspects of Japanese Imperial tyrrany in Pacific and its treatment of other Asians as well as Allied Prisoners of War.
A good meaty read from cover to cover and a very good jumping off point for the study of individual campaigns and battles.
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5: Pacific War must read
Not that this fine book needs any further reviews in praise, But I felt compelled to say that this is a masterpiece with a remarkably complete overview of the Pacific campaign in a comparatively small volume. Mr. Spector wastes no words in this highly readable and commendably concise historical contribution. It helped to establish a continuity to the events that I didn't always appreciate the significance of in reading many much longer books, excellent in their kind, of narrower scope in time.
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