japan war

Hardcover. NY, Viking Press, 2nd pr., 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 430 pages. Immediately after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo. On April 18, 1942, eighty brave young men, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, took off from a navy carrier in the mid-Pacific on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission but instead became a resounding American victory and helped turn the tide of the war. The First Heroes is the story of that mission. Meticulously researched and based on interviews with twenty of the surviving Tokyo Raiders, this is a true account that almost defies belief, a tremendous human drama of great personal courage, and a powerful reminder that ordinary people, when faced with extraordinary circumstances, can rise to the challenge of history. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 294 pages, b&w photos. Sam Kleiner's The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma. In the wake of the disaster at Pearl Harbor this motley crew was the first group of Americans to take on the Japanese in combat, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand, and China. At a time when the Allies were being defeated across the globe, the Flying Tigers' exploits gave hope to Americans and Chinese alike. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, New York University Press, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, pages. The GI War Against Japan recounts the harrowing experiences of American soldiers in Asia and the Pacific. Based on countless diaries and letters, it sweeps across the battlefields, from the early desperate stand at Guadalcanal to the tragic sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at war's very end. From the daunting spaces of the China-India theater to the fortress islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Schrijvers brings to life the GIs' struggle with suffocating wilderness, devastating diseases, and Japanese soldiers who preferred death over life. Amidst the frustration and despair of this war, American soldiers abandoned themselves to an escalating rage that presaged Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 364 pages. The Second World War's Pacific conflict was one of the most complex in history. It embrioled peoples from opposite sides of the globe; it was fought in China, across the expanses of the Pacific, and in the jungles of Southeast Asia; and it was devastating in its consequences for civilians and servicemen alike. It saw the first use of atomic weapons, hastened the end of the Western empires in Asia, and marked America's rise to the position of the most powerful nation in the world.Christopher Thorne, whose previous studies of the war in the Pacific have become landmarks in the field, here weaves together both the entire network of international relations surrounding the war and the impact the war had on all the societies involved--Indian as well as American; Australian and New Zealand as well as Japanese; Korean, Chinese, and Southeast Asian as well as British, French, and Dutch. The Issue of War draws on material gathered over many years in the Far East, Western Europe, and the U.S.--material including wartime films, broadcasts, and newspapers,as well as countless private and offical papers. Representing a synthesis of military, diplomatic, economic, intellectual, and social history, it not only places the war in the context of developments before 1941, but illuminates various patterns that cut across the familiar distinctions between Asia and the West or between Japan and the Allies. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st US, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in decorated cloth, 32 pages illustrated in color by Mahood. Enjoying the last few days of summer,The Emperor of Japan was about to eat his morning egg when suddenly out jumped a little smiling dragon. He seemed very friendly, so the Emperor decided to call him Hojo and keep him as the Imperial Pet. Hojo soon became a great favorite with everyone by making himself useful around the palace. He made delicious soups, had a very light hand with pastry, and the Emperor loved his pancakes. In addition he was always gay and cheerful, could sing, play chess, enjoy a joke, and his hot breath kept the palace warm, which was a great comfort to the Emperor who suffered from cold feet. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean and bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards, 271 pages. Journey into the mind and creative process of one of the most celebrated anime directors working today with The Man Who Leapt Through Film: The Art of Mamoru Hosoda. Written by renowned animation critic and historian Charles Solomon (The Art of WolfWalkers) and featuring exclusive interviews alongside hundreds of never-before-seen sketches, storyboards, background paintings, character designs, and concept art, this is the ultimate companion piece to Hosoda's work. Writer/director/animator Mamoru Hosoda's work includes Belle (2021), the Academy Award-nominated Mirai (2018); The Boy and the Beast (2015); Wolf Children (2012); Summer Wars (2009); and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006). He is the cofounder of Studio Chizu, one of Japan's premier animation studios. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. NY, Quill/ William Morrow, reprint, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 432 pages, b&w illustrations. Dotted with stunning disclosures of crimes and cover-ups, this is a startling narrative of the way Japan conducted World War II: from Nanking to Pearl Harbor to the attempted assassination of Stalin to their final surrender. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Souvenir Press, 1st UK, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 192 pages. First-person accounts of life in a Japanese POW camp are not common, and illustrated memoirs are rare indeed. Searle, a young British art student, was captured at the fall of Singapore and spent the next four years covertly sketching his captors and fellow prisoners. His work matured as the war progressed, growing from merely facile to totally captivating. He grew skilled at suggesting personality, and many of his drawings are unforgettable. A brief personal narrative accompanies the portfolio, placing the works into historic perspective. Artistically as as well as historically, this book is a treat.

Hardcover. London, Angus and Robertson, 1st UK, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. General, minister of war, prime minister, and unrepentant ultranationalist, Hideki Tojo was the most powerful leader in the Japanese government during World War II. This clear and compelling portrait of Tojo illuminates the spartan, single-minded, incorruptible personality of the man who chose war rather than succumb to U.S.-induced economic strangulation. 20 photos. 288 pages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 2nd pr., 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 926 pages, illustrations. In June 1944, the United States launched a crushing assault on the Japanese navy in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The capture of the Mariana Islands and the accompanying ruin of Japanese carrier airpower marked a pivotal moment in the Pacific War. No tactical masterstroke or blunder could reverse the increasingly lopsided balance of power between the two combatants. The War in the Pacific had entered its endgame. Beginning with the Honolulu Conference, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with his Pacific theater commanders to plan the last phase of the campaign against Japan, Twilight of the Gods brings to life the harrowing last year of World War II in the Pacific, when the U.S. Navy won the largest naval battle in history; Douglas MacArthur made good his pledge to return to the Philippines; waves of kamikazes attacked the Allied fleets; the Japanese fought to the last man on one island after another; B-29 bombers burned down Japanese cities; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vaporized in atomic blasts. Ian W. Tolls narratives of combat in the air, at sea, and on the beaches are as gripping as ever, but he also reconstructs the Japanese and American home fronts and takes the reader into the halls of power in Washington and Tokyo, where the great questions of strategy and diplomacy were decided. Clean copy.

Softcover. London, Sirius, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 192 pages. Award-winning cartoonist Tony Husband tells the story of World War II through a selection of the era's finest political cartoons. Satire is one of the key weapons of war. Forget 'sticks and stones', each country uses cartoons to hit the enemy where it really hurts and to maintain morale on the home front. Each country brought their own unique style and this collection features work from Britain, the USA, Germany, Russia and Japan and features the work of some of World War II's greatest cartoonists including Bill Mauldin, Fougasse, Emett, David Low and Graham Laidler. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 509 pages, b&w illustrations. Based on twenty years of research in formerly secret archives, this book reveals for the first time the full significance of War Plan Orange -- the U.S. Navy's strategy to defeat Japan, formulated over the forty years prior to World War II. The author does a good job of describing how the plan changed over time regarding possible objectives (rescuing Philippines, capturing Truk, making Guam into the "Gibraltar of the Pacific) as well as the different groups who pushed for their vision on how to best execute the plan from the gung-ho thrusters to the cautionaries to name the major approaches. The book also details the interplay between the navy and the army as they worked together to create a global plan of war as the world became more dangerous in the 1930's (the Rainbow Plans). The work concludes with an analysis of just how successful all the effort that went into creating Plan Orange was to the waging of the Pacific War in 1941-45. Clean copy.

Softcover. Norman OK, University of Oklahoma Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 656 pages. In mythic sagas of the American West, the wide western range offered boundless opportunity to a limited cast of white men. Buffalo roamed, deer and antelope played, and women's voices were never heard. Writing the Range allows us to hear many long-silenced women: Spanish-Mexican settlers and American Indians on New Spain's northern frontiers; Chinese, Basque, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Slavic, and Irish immigrants; film stars Dolores del Rio and Lupe Velez; Navajos and African Americans who moved to western cities during World War II; and the activist Mothers of East Los Angeles, who organized to resist environmental dangers to their community. A valuable introduction to the rapidly changing field of western history, Writing the Range explains clearly how race, class, and culture are constructed and connected. The first section examines issues raised by more than a decade of multicultural western women's histories; following are six chronological sections spanning four centuries. Each section offers a short introduction connecting is essays and placing them in analytic and historical perspective. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Simon and Schuster, 1946, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, tan cloth covers stamped in black. A fascinating collection. It features the cartoons of David Low, most from the London Evening Standard, from Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 through the surrender of Japan in 1945, in chronological order. They are each accompanied by text by Quincy Howe, which explains the context of each cartoon. The reader can follow the events in the order that they happen from the build-up to the war through its conclusion, in an easy-to-read format. Howe has also written a chronology of the period, which appears at the end of the book. No dust jacket. The cloth spine has wear to top and bottom, Firm binding and the interior is clean and bright.