Japan in the World Wars

Japan in the World Wars – by ‘Charles River Edition’

So many things come to my mind when reflecting on reading this er….um….’book’.  I found this book by accident after looking deep online for something to enlighten my learning about the nation of Japan in the early 20^th century. I was mainly curious to learn about the events that led to them foolishly attacking the United States on December 7^th, 1941.  This book was free if you have ‘Kindle Unlimited’. That, in itself, doesn’t necessarily translate into being a good thing.  There’s a lot of garbage out there, and when something is listed as ‘free’, there might be a reason. Overall, I enjoyed reading this, and I did learn an awful lot, but the style of the book was quite haphazard, and I seriously doubt that any respected publisher would touch this thing with a ten-foot pole.

Reading this book reminds me of when you’re having a conversation with someone and they begin to tell you a story. The person gets distracted as they’re talking to you, and they kind of drift away from the main point of the story.  They then end up telling you a completely different story other than what they originally intended.  I didn’t think the material was tightly related to the title, but when the author(s) wander, though, they still manage to keep the narrative fresh and engaging.  I felt, though, like I was reading a school textbook that was written by several different authors, and the authors never bothered to compare notes before, during, nor after the writing.

Few are probably aware, but Japan did fight in the first World War. Fewer maybe realize that they fought on the side of the allies.  Sadly, very little of this book is devoted to this time period. In fact, after I finished this book, I couldn’t even remember any of the details from this period. Then, the narrative shifts to post World War I. Again, not much page space devoted to this portion either. This was really what I was hoping to read about, so in that aspect I was disappointed. The next ‘phase’ would be when Japan invades neighboring China in an effort to flex their newly formed muscles. We get a bit more from this part of history, but only a bit.  Again, I was somewhat disappointed.

So there’s was very little on World War I, very little on post-World War I, and very little on China. What we do get a lot of (and boy, do I mean ‘a lot of’) is the Japan-United States conflict from Pearl Harbor through Nagasaki.  This is where this book really excels; at least in terms of detail.  It’s a bit TOO detailed for my taste, but someone wanting to know about all of the blow by blow accounts of the Pacific War, this book is a great source. Since this book is (I think) only available in electronic format, there are no page numbers.  If I had to guess, I would say that this book is about 1,000 pages long. Not bad for a freebie. About 850 of those pages, though, is devoted to 1941-1945. So again, the title of the book is a tad misleading.

On the plus side, there are lots of pictures included. There are a lot of maps as well, but it’s obvious that the same person didn’t illustrate each map.  Some of the maps are very amateurish, and probably aren’t even good enough to be included in a second-grade textbook.  Also, there are many times when we read about a famous figure of World War II, and get to see a picture of the person in the book (good), but the very next chapter would bring up the same person, and we would get the exact same picture of the person shown to us again (not really so good).

I came across one fascinating anecdote about the Kamikaze pilots in the closing days of World War II. Japan was really getting desperate and many of these young men were drugged and ‘forced’ into their planes.  Again, the very next chapter told the reader the exact same story.  For a book that features ‘Editors’ as part of its author, you can’t help but note the irony that it doesn’t appear that this book even utilized one.  Since the war ended with two atomic bombs being dropped, it’s perfectly acceptable that the book takes us on a slight diversion to talk about the history of the atomic bomb. Again, though, the slight diversion turns into a major diversion, and after the author(s) conclude their mini-history lesson on the bomb, the book suddenly ends.  It’s like “Wait…..I thought this was a book on JAPAN??”

Well, it WAS free, and I did learn an awful lot. For that reason, I would recommend this book, but really only for someone who wants a detailed account of the Pacific Theatre of Operations during World War II. If you’re looking for something pre-1941, I would advise you to look elsewhere.  Good book, but a far cry from a professional piece of literature.