Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War: A Brief History with Documents and Essays

by Akira Iriye

With more than 30 primary documents, including proposals, memoranda, decrypted messages, and imperial conferences, Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War explores how and why the United States and Japan went to war in 1941.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Grad School, World War II, Japan

272 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 1999

About the author

Akira Iriye is an historian of American diplomatic history especially United States-East Asian relations, and international issues. A graduate of Haverford College and Harvard University, he taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Rochester, and the University of Chicago before accepting an appointment as Professor of History at Harvard University in 1989, where he became Charles Warren Professor of American History in 1991. He was Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies from 1991 through 1995. He served as President of the American Historical Association in 1988, and has also served as president for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Reviews

[Jackloco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how to feel about WWII anymore. Ah who am I kidding, I'll blame the Chinese still for not following any of their treaties and compacts before 1931.

[phoebe]

read for class and now i feel like a WWII dad

[Ainsley]

Read for HST 217

[Chi Pham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was the Pearl Harbor attack inevitable? To some people, it certainly was, because Japanese people were simply crazy. But no, look at this book, and put yourself in the Japanese leaders' shoes. Or for that matter, the US, or any other warring nations' shoes. The book does not reveal as much about the attack itself as to the circumstances that this attack emerged during Japanese discussions in 1941. And the author puts the attack in a global context, describing how this conflict did not simply involve the two sides of the Pacific War, but a whole range of other nations. The Pearl Harbor attack is as much of a political and diplomatic battleground as a real site of military destruction.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I only read the first half of the book which consisted of mostly primary documents or translations of primary documents. I really really loved this book since the author did a good job of presenting you with intellectually stimulating questions but never gave you the answers himself. The point of the book is for people to get an idea of what historians actually do through analyzing primary documents and this was my first real time doing this. Anyway, if you are interested in the politics leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this book provides some real insight.

[rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read most of it. i feel like i can’t even truly rate this because it was just documents but the little analysis that iriye did include was definitely super helpful. he slayed