The Issue of War: States, Societies, and the Far Eastern Conflict, 1941-1945 Hardcover - 1985

From the publisher

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.
About the Author:
Christopher Thorne, a Fellow of the British Academy, is the author of Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941-1945. In 1979 he became the first non-American to win the Bancroft Prize for American histor