The Rising Sun: The Decline & Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-45

This Pulitzer Prize–winning history of WWII chronicles the dramatic rise & fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria & China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Told from a Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, “a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened—muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox.” In weaving together the historical facts & human drama leading up to & culminating in the war in the Pacific, Toland crafts an unbiased narrative history. In his Foreword, he writes that if we're to draw any conclusion from The Rising Sun, it's “that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history.”