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Tower of skulls : a history of the Asia-Pacific war, July 1937-May 1942 / Richard B. Frank.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020]Edition: First editionDescription: 751 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781324002109
  • 1324002107
Other title:
  • History of the Asia-Pacific war. Volume 1, July 1937-May 1942
  • History of the Asia-Pacific war. Volume One, July 1937-May 1942
Subject(s):
Contents:
Prologue: The Marco Polo Bridge -- "China cannot be lost" -- "The bombs and the bullets and the bayonets of the Japanese are ruthless" -- "Water as a substitute for soldiers" -- "The great migration of people in all history" -- "A despicable urge to live!" -- "Japan's prince of self-destruction" -- "One hundred evils and not a single good" -- "Leaping off the veranda" -- "Our anxiety is about China" -- "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning" -- "Air raid, Pearl Harbor, this is no drill" -- "Issue in doubt" -- "It was like being lost in fog" -- "We are depending for our lives on kindly but slow-witted infants in arms" -- "Men would follow them, suffer, and be glad about it" -- "Only war proves what is correct and what is wrong" -- "Abandoned my 100,000 soldiers in foreign jungles" -- "We are not barbarians."
Summary: "The first book in a new three-volume history of the Asia-Pacific War, by the acclaimed author of Downfall and Guadalcanal. In 1937 the swath of the globe from India to Japan contained half the world's population, but only two nations with real sovereignty (Japan and Thailand) and two with compromised sovereignty (China and Mongolia). All other peoples in the region endured under some form of colonialism. Today the region contains nineteen major, fully sovereign nations. Tower of Skulls is the first work in any language to present a unified account of the course and titanic impact of this part of the global war, which began the torturous route to twenty-first-century Asia. Covering with extraordinary detail campaigns in China, Singapore, the Philippines, and Burma, as well as the attack on Pearl Harbor, it expands beyond military elements to highlight the critical political, economic, and social reverberations of the struggle. Finally, it provides a graphic depiction of the often forgotten but truly horrific death toll in the Asia-Pacific region-over 20 million-which continues to shape international relations today"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 940.5425 F828 Available 33111009603859
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In 1937, the swath of the globe east from India to the Pacific Ocean enclosed half the world's population, all save a fraction enduring under some form of colonialism. Japan's onslaught into China that year unleashed a tidal wave of events that fundamentally transformed this region and killed about twenty-five million people. From just two nation states with real sovereignty, Thailand and Japan, and two with compromised sovereignty, China and Mongolia, the region today encompasses at least nineteen major sovereign nations. This extraordinary World War II narrative vividly describes in exquisite detail the battles across this entire region and links those struggles on many levels with their profound twenty-first-century legacies.

Beginning with China's long-neglected years of heroic, costly resistance, Tower of Skulls explodes outward to campaigns including Singapore, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies, India, and Burma, as well as across the Pacific to Pearl Harbor. These pages cast penetrating light on how struggles in Europe and Asia merged into a tightly entwined global war. They feature not just battles, but also the sweeping political, economic, and social effects of the war, and are graced with a rich tapestry of individual characters from top-tier political and military figures down to ordinary servicemen, as well as the accounts of civilians of all races and ages.

In this first volume of a trilogy, award-winning historian Richard B. Frank draws on rich archival research and recently discovered documentary evidence to tell an epic story that gave birth to the world we live in now.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [687]-711) and index.

Prologue: The Marco Polo Bridge -- "China cannot be lost" -- "The bombs and the bullets and the bayonets of the Japanese are ruthless" -- "Water as a substitute for soldiers" -- "The great migration of people in all history" -- "A despicable urge to live!" -- "Japan's prince of self-destruction" -- "One hundred evils and not a single good" -- "Leaping off the veranda" -- "Our anxiety is about China" -- "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning" -- "Air raid, Pearl Harbor, this is no drill" -- "Issue in doubt" -- "It was like being lost in fog" -- "We are depending for our lives on kindly but slow-witted infants in arms" -- "Men would follow them, suffer, and be glad about it" -- "Only war proves what is correct and what is wrong" -- "Abandoned my 100,000 soldiers in foreign jungles" -- "We are not barbarians."

"The first book in a new three-volume history of the Asia-Pacific War, by the acclaimed author of Downfall and Guadalcanal. In 1937 the swath of the globe from India to Japan contained half the world's population, but only two nations with real sovereignty (Japan and Thailand) and two with compromised sovereignty (China and Mongolia). All other peoples in the region endured under some form of colonialism. Today the region contains nineteen major, fully sovereign nations. Tower of Skulls is the first work in any language to present a unified account of the course and titanic impact of this part of the global war, which began the torturous route to twenty-first-century Asia. Covering with extraordinary detail campaigns in China, Singapore, the Philippines, and Burma, as well as the attack on Pearl Harbor, it expands beyond military elements to highlight the critical political, economic, and social reverberations of the struggle. Finally, it provides a graphic depiction of the often forgotten but truly horrific death toll in the Asia-Pacific region-over 20 million-which continues to shape international relations today"-- Provided by publisher.

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