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If the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century may be a time of reckoning for the United States. Chalmers Johnson, an authority on Japan and its economy, offers a troubling prognosis of what's to come. Blowback--the title refers to a CIA neologism describing the unintended consequences of American activity--is a call for the United States to rethink its position in the world. "The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation," writes Johnson. "The world is not a safer place as a result." Individual chapters focus on Okinawa (where American servicemen were accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in "Asia's last colony"), the two Koreas, China, and Japan. The result is a liberal-leaning (and Asia-centric) call for the United States to disengage from many of its global commitments. Critics will call Johnson an isolationist, but friends (perhaps admirers of Patrick Buchanan's A Republic, Not an Empire) will say he simply speaks good sense. All will agree he is an earnest voice: "I believe our very hubris ensures our undoing." --John J. Miller
Book Description
The term 'blowback,' invented by the CIA, refers to the unintended results of American actions abroad. In this incisive and controversial book, Chalmers Johnson lays out in vivid detail the dangers faced by our overextended empire, which insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From a case of rape by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa to our role in Asia's financial crisis, from our early support for Saddam Hussein to our conduct in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the ways in which our misguided policies are planting the seeds of future disaster. In a new edition that addresses recent international events from September 11 to the war in Iraq, this now classic book remains as prescient and powerful as ever.
Customer Reviews:
Astonishingly good.......2007-10-10
I came across this book when I was looking for the recently published book by Profs. Mearsheimer and Walt on the Israeli lobby. I was familiar with Chalmers Johnson's name, but knew nothing about his work. I just read Blowback and am eager to read the other two in his trilogy. I have a generally good awareness of the idiocy of most American foreign policy simply from reading newspapers regularly and well-researched books occasionally on foreign policy or political science or history - as well as from spending some time outside the USA at various times and in various roles.
The disparity between how the USA as an entity and through the citizens (mostly soldiers) it sends abroad to perform official roles behaves outside the confines of its borders and how the average citizen goes about his/her daily life and therefore perceives his/her country is frighteningly wide. However, I was truly stunned at the well-written, clearly well-researched and even-handed account that Prof. Johnson gives of USA policy and USA actions in regard in particular to Asia. I do not doubt the accuracy of his analysis and reporting. In support of his recounting of the utter waste of citizens' tax dollars on most military and military-related activity (so-called intelligence-gathering, covert undermining of non-dictatorial governments and the like) I noted that the Bush Administration recently (summer 2007) had one of its flunkies start blathering about the fact that the USA maintains bases throughout the world, notably in Western European countries, Okinawa and Korea even though there are no "hostilities" there.
The inadvertent raising of a pertinent issue regarding the USA military presence (in less polite words, occupation) in those countries was quickly excised from the arguments for establishing a permanent military presence in Iraq. Good point. Why does the USA maintain a military presence in these countries? Mr. Johnson's book admirably traces the why and thereby makes clear the horrible impact our presence in these countries has had on many people in the world and in turn on innocents in the USA, such as those who died at the hands of Tim McVeigh and the suicide airline pilots. It is books like Mr. Johnson's that should be on the forefront of discussion among politicians, editorial-writers and any others who attempt to make or debate policy. As the inanities, nonsense and outright lies that have no basis whatsoever in fact emanating from the current roster of right-wing, know-nothing Republicans in Congress - abetted on occasion by poorly informed Democrats - attest, the current unending propaganda regarding events and conditions in the rest of the world, notably in Iraq and in the Middle East in general, is likely to continue to overwhelm outstanding analyses such as this. I wish it wouldn't. I hope that those with some curiosity about the wonders and diversity of the world - not to mention facts about how the USA and other countries behave in the world - will discover this book as I did.
Blowback? Nah---mainly just Blow........2007-08-23
Chalmers Johnson might very well have entitled this manifestly overrated little jeremiad of gloom, doom, and rice-paddy Manchurian manifest destiny "Everything I know about Geopolitics I learned from the Golden Rule".
That's "Blowback": do unto others, O Mighty Great Satan, as you would have them do unto you. Or as the learned geo-strategist and member of the Council on Foreign Relations grandmaster funk-flash rapper extra-ordinaire Jay-Z once put it (in verse, and to a funky hip-hop beat, which is *way* more than Johnson accomplishes in this nearly cranium-anesthetizing snoozer):
"now you shoot my my dog/
I'ma gonna kill yo' cat/
just the unwritten Laws/
in Rap."
Word. Basically, Johnson is saying that all those nasty, naughty, uber-meanie things the U.S. did (or might have done, deniability, baby, deniability) in the last century (and now, yes, tiresomely the first part of the 21st century) are gonna come back to haunt us. Payback's a bizzle, fo shizzle.
Or, to dip deeply into the cliche snuffbox, what goes around, comes around. Or better still, if you're up for Chinese---4th BC Chinese---: "if you sit by the River long enough, you will see the bodies of all your enemies float by."
There: in this review, you've gotten the gist of Johnson's 'argument', and you've saved yourself the misery of having "Blowback" inflicted on you. You should be grateful.
OK: so example---we helped supply, feed, & train the Mujahadeen to fight a nasty and ultimately successful insurgency against the Soviets. The Jihadis won, kicked the Soviets out, and replaced a doddering, backward, socially repressive & economically retarded 19th century system with a---get this---doddering, backward, socially repressive & economically retarded 7th century system.
Progress? Yes. Blowback? NO! Not Blowback, not that bit anyway. Blowback was what happened when the Taliban and their buddies (including our Bon Ami et Frere Amicable Osama bin "Gin & Juice" Laden) got tired of crushing homosexuals beneath stone walls, blowing up ancient Buddha statues, and strangling dogs. Those crazy Talibs! We got 9/11, the ultimate "blowback.". Or blowup. Or something like that.
Now, it's true that Chalmers Johnson's 'idea' has a nice, simple symmetry to it, in the same way the delightful childrens' potty book "Everything Poops" does: it's, well, true. And obvious.
But seen from a different angle (say, that of adulthood), it's a bit retarded. Or, let's be kind, simplistic. It says, if you, as an Empire, or Republic, or whatever you are---if you do something, something's going to happen. Man, go tell it to the Spartans! (or Newton). Actions have consequences. If you read "Blowback", for instance, the blowback might be that you hear your brain cells scream as they die.
Take the British, who for years now have done everything they can to pretend to be a stodgier, duller, more moldy version of Canada, & what has that gotten them? Flaming gate crashers at Glasgow airport and having their Royal Marines publicly humilated and dressed by Tehran's answer to Today's Man.
But like Paul Kennedy yammering, with yen besotted yuppies back in the early eighties, that the Land of the Rising Sun was about to make us all eat sushi and do Shinto devotionals before our morning calisthenics prior to ruling the World---well, Blowback is just not all that. It's too elementary, man: it's thermodynamical.
And in politics, in affairs of state, in war and manipulation & sabotage, in all of that, it's not even necessarily true. The point being: if you're brutal enough, there will be no blowback.
Think about that for a moment: you don't even have to consult antiquity for examples where if you're willing to play around in a little bit of blood and crack some skulls, there will be no real `blowback'. Russia has ruthlessly crushed & decimated Muslim movements in its former Asian provinces and puppet states, the latest being the pathetic instance of Chechnya. And for all that, I have yet to hear Russia denounced by any imams as even a moderate-sized Satan. Hell, Russia & Iran are great buddies, so long as the latter keeps those rent checks coming on the old Bushehr reactor.
China is another great example: for more than five decades, China has occupied Tibet and taken every step possible to destroy its society and culture. For all of that, wanna know China's "blowback" from this merciless, honestly fascist occupation? The 2008 Olympic Games, a few thousand pathetic "Free Tibet" bumper sticker affixed to the bumpers of liberals' Priuses, & Richard Gere.
To dragoon Orwell's delicious little phrase, if you stomp on a man's face long and hard enough---you know, until you hear bone snap & soft tissue turns to jelly and the eyeballs pop out---there ain't gona be enough to---well, blow back.
In summary: Chalmers gets a big fat F for his stupid "Blowback" and should wear a duncecap in public.
That said, I can find one example---right here, right now!---that supports Johnson's thesis. Are you ready?
Johnson writes his tired, pathetic, dull little ratturd of a book.
In return, I gut his book like a sick fish in a quick and deadly online review.
Now that's what I call blowback.
JSG
Enlightening.......2007-08-17
The book's idea is that US foreign policy, made to win the cold war, has consequences. For instance, in '53 when we installed the Shah of Iran to act as a puppet for the West (overthrowing the democratically elected Mosaddeq because of oil) he repressed the people until he was overthrown in Jan. 1979. We'd be crazy to believe that the people who overthrew Persia's most ruthless dictator not be anti-American (since we installed that dictator). To this day I see people asking why Iran's government dislikes the US - "Do they hate us for our freedoms?" Taking this idea of "unintended consequences," Johnson talks specifically about East Asia and its history during the Cold War and after. In particular, he mentions Indonesia, Korea, China, and Japan.
I found the book very enlightening. Since 9/11 the US news and media's idea of international news coverage has been Middle-Eastern news coverage (except for natural disasters around the world and other frivolous events). Also, I went to public-school - I didn't know anything about Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries (and I took all AP history classes). So, there was this vacuum of knowledge about East Asia I had, which this book filled quite nicely.
Also mentioned in the book, briefly, are neoclassical economics, WTO, IMF, World Bank, 1997 economic crisis, Hungarian revolution, and the '73 Chilean coup as well as some other US interventions in the Middle-East.
Very informative, but drawn out and wordy............2007-08-04
This book is very informative and the first and last chapters are worth paying for the entire thing just to read them. Not the most Pro-American book I've ever read, but will give you an interesting take on things. Very in depth and revealing. Certainly shows how our American Empire can throw our weight around when necessary - and when not. Not bad, but a bit too wordy for me. Still good though.
Pull Your Head Out or Die With It In The Sand.......2007-07-17
This book deserves five stars, but I can tell you it's nothing like listening to this man speak in person. As in "Blowback" he lays it all out on the table. Sadly he says, "We just may have gone pass the point of no return." Americans now know that authors like Chalmers Johnson, Norm Chomsky, Webster Griffin Tarpley and Paul Waldman are not just over-educated nay sayers. We know that we're in real trouble, we just don't know what to do about it. If 9/11 proved nothing else, it proved that aircraft carriers, F16's, and smart bombs are useless against terrorists and apathy.
Dr. Johnson summarizes the status quo: "We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of its endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits patiently for her meeting with us."
I am without the education to travel in the circles of the aforementioned authors, but I can in my own way address my fellow blue collar workers... The media has dubbed me one of America's most controversial writers. I think it's because I criticize my own party, the Republican Party, instead of the Democrats. This unorthodox approach of mine gives people the wrong idea about me. I don't hate predators. If there weren't hawks in this country, those in other countries would show up here. Do not misinterpret "Hawk" to mean I approve of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney and their Hermann Goering protégés in the Pentagon. Bush is a mouth and a pen; he's in a different league altogether than his vice president. Cheney is a vulgar, immoral, sadistic subhuman. Does that make me a Libertarian?
Average customer rating:
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Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War (New Studies in European History)
Davide Rodogno
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0521845157 |
Book Description
A controversial reappraisal of the Italian occupation of the Mediterranean during the Second World War which Davide Rodogno examines for the first time within the framework of fascist imperial ambitions. He focuses on the European territories annexed and occupied by Italy between 1940 and 1943: metropolitan France, Corsica, Slovenia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Western Macedonia, and mainland and insular Greece. He explores Italy’s plans for Mediterranean expansion, its relationship with Germany, economic exploitation, the forced ‘Italianisation’ of the annexed territories, collaboration, repression, and Italian policies towards refugees and Jews. He also compares Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany through their dreams of imperial conquest, the role of racism and anti-Semitism, and the ‘fascistization’ of the Italian Army. Based on largely unpublished sources, this is a groundbreaking contribution to genocide, resistance, war crimes and occupation studies as well as to the history of the Second World War more generally.
Book Description
In the first part of this comprehensive all-new two-volume military history of the Franco-Prussian War, Quintin Barry presents a detailed account of the war against the French Imperial Army waged by the armies of the German Confederation, directed by that supreme military mind, Helmuth von Moltke.
The author places Moltke and his strategic planning in the context of the European balance of power following the ending of the Austria Prussian War of 1866, before exploring the initial mobilization and deployment of the armies in 1870. All of the battles of this opening round of the war are described in detail, including Weissenburg, Worth, Spicheren, Borny-Colombey, Mars la Tour, Gravelotte, Beaumont and, of course, Sedan.
The book ends as the Second Empire of Napoleon III lies defeated, crushed by the German armies directed by von Moltke.
The author has made full use of an extensive number of German and French language sources. His detailed text is accompanied by a number of black and white illustrations and newly drawn battle maps. Orders of battle are also provided.
Customer Reviews:
Franco-Prussian War.......2007-08-01
Even though I'm only about halfway through Vol I, I am REALLY enjoying the book. It is a very enjoyable book and easy to read. The chapters are well organized and describe nicely how the war started, the Prussian and French high command and the battles. It is very clear to read why the war has progressed so well for the Prussians and so poorly for the French. I can't wait to finish it - highly recommended!
Book Description
This Pulitzer Prize–winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the 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 and human drama leading up to and culminating in the war in the Pacific, Toland crafts a riveting and unbiased narrative history. In his Foreword, Toland says that if we are to draw any conclusion from The Rising Sun, it is “that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history.”
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2007-08-10
Many people have given excellent reviews, so I will not repeat myself here. It's not a book written from a victor's perspective, thus some might have found that apologetic. Though I think the book was softer in Japanese side, I don't think it's seriously biased.
Many books about second world war were written with great emotions, hatred ... the rape of Nanking just popped up in head. So, I think for someone who just want to learn about the history, it's a rather good book without making you emotionally drained to learn the details of the atrocities of war.
I think super-patriotic American may find the book offensive. But, I will say it's recommended reading for WWII.
Excellent addition to the Modern Library War section.......2007-07-19
John Tolland's book is an excellent review of Japanese history in the World War II period of 1936-1945. it is a wonderful addition to the modern war library and conveys not only a great perspective on Japan but world politics at the time. It is very detailed on the significance of battles and key details. This is not a blow by blow summary of the war but a big picture look at how the pacific unfolded and the Japanese empire fell apart. The deep scar this left on the Japanese nation is apparent and the alien nature of Japanese culture to Americans is really well displayed. If you are just starting out on learning about Japan and World War II this really is the best book to start with.
a compelling narrative.......2007-03-15
This is a stupendous achievement: a detailed narrative of the Pacific War encompassing the perspectives of both sides that is a model of descriptive clarity and evenhandness. Some readers, even four decades after its publication, will be uncomfortable with the considerable use of original material from the Japanese side of events seemingly "uncontestable" in the popular mind in the U.S., Britain or Australia. Toland's journalistic effort, including interviewing scores of key players in Japan, is however what lends the book its greatest value - not because the Japanese perspective should prevail, but because it must be heard. Of course contractions and unexplained aspects of the war remain, and new research has superceded some of its material, but few books come close to conveying the ebb and flow of events that took Japan to war and defeat as convincingly as this one. It is, however, a work of journalism that extensively "recreates" conversations, as a television documentary would, and adopts a certitude about motives and actions that goes beyond the necessary caution of history. Also how much more valuable it would be as a reference work if it had a proper and full apparatus of citations.
Frustratingly apologetic! .......2006-12-25
I used to have high respect for Toland for being an author of various books on World war II but this book give me a second thought about his objectivity as a writer.Quoting from almost exclusively Japanese sources,he seems to neglect the fact that even today after more than sixty years,the japanese,notably their alledgedly democratic and peace loving leaders, remain stubbornly refused to acknowledged that they committed anything wrong in invading their asian neighbors,massacres of their inhabitants,stealing and ransacking their properties,raping their women and other atrocities.Toland's apologetic attitude toward the Japs is alarming aside from being disgusting.However his attempts to present history from the point of view of a criminal is something quite new but I found it worth reading, just to learn another lesson of man inhumanity to mankind.
Good History.......2006-08-15
The book is good history, expecially for the events and negotions leading up to actual war between America and Japan. The history of the actual fighting is good, but is only one of several histories that are available, of which each is edited according to various viewpoints and biases.
Book Description
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Introduction.
"Besides writing an important history, Horne adds to our understanding of the evolution of white supremacy."
—Political Affairs
"This is a challenging story, known to specialists but worth retelling from a fresh perspecctive."
— Library Journal
"New studies of World War II and the Pacific War should be conducted with an aim to learn from the forgotten people- the 'colored' people- in Asia and the Pacific. Horne's book provides a valuable suggestion towards that lesson."
—Diplomatic History
"The strength of this book is that it leaves no claim unsubstantiated, and that it does not paint a picture in black and white. Horne does note vade the many contradictions that race inserted into the complexities of the war, but tackles them with analytic clarity."—Asia Views
”Horne's analysis of the race problem and its role in World War II is both brilliant and convincing.” —Virginia Review of Asian Studies
”This ambitious, transnational study makes a valuable and proactive contribution to the growing literature devoted to the racial aspects of the Pacific War.”
—Pacific Historical Review
”This book is full of interesting information like this about deep and wide repercussions of Japan's racial stance...”
—Journal of Imperial Commonwealth History.
Japan's lightning march across Asia during World War II was swift and brutal. Nation after nation fell to Japanese soldiers. How were the Japanese able to justify their occupation of so many Asian nations? And how did they find supporters in countries they subdued and exploited?
Race War! delves into submerged and forgotten history to reveal how European racism and colonialism were deftly exploited by the Japanese to create allies among formerly colonized people of color. Through interviews and original archival research on five continents, Gerald Horne shows how race played a key—and hitherto ignored—role in each phase of the war.
During the conflict, the Japanese turned white racism on its head portraying the war as a defense against white domination in the Pacific. We learn about the reverse racial hierarchy practiced by the Japanese internment camps, in which whites were placed at the bottom of the totem pole, under the supervision of Chinese, Korean, and Indian guards—an embarrassing example of racial payback that was downplayed by the defeated Japanese and the humiliated Europeans and Euro-Americans.
Focusing on the microcosmic example of Hong Kong but ranging from colonial India to New Zealand and the shores of the U.S., Gerald Horne radically retells the story of the war. From racist U.S. propaganda to Black Nationalist open support of Imperial Japan, information about the effect of race on U.S. and British policy is revealed for the first time. This revisionist account of the war draws connections between General Tojo, Malaysian freedom fighters, and Elijah Muhammed of the Nation of Islam and shows how white racism encouraged and enabled Japanese imperialism. In sum, Horne demonstrates that the retreat of white supremacy was not only driven by the impact of the Cold War and the energized militancy of Africans and African-Americans but by the impact of the Pacific War as well, as a chastened U.S. and U.K. moved vigorously after this conflict to remove the conditions that made Japan's success possible.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting topic, shoddy scholarship.......2006-04-01
This is an interesting topic, since very few people before Horne wrote directly and exhaustively about it. Nevertheless, Horne's conclusion is largely unfounded basing on what really happened in history. Horne essentially argued that it was one successful Japanese campaigne after another that finally mentally liberated the colonized peoples of Asia from being psychologically and spiritually subjugated by the White man. This actually is quite untrue. Japan had *already* established itself as militarily equal to, if not superior to, any Western power *in the region* by 1905. Not only did the Western nations at that time acknowledged it, they based their policies on the assumption that the Japanese Empire was their equal. This is evidenced by the way they acquiesced to almost all Japanese demands in the Versailles Conference after the Great War. This, together with the fact that Japan had already established itself as a colonial empire (over Korea and Taiwan), placed Japan squarely within the camp of the family of imperialist nations (though I grant you that the West recognized Japan as equal only reluctantly.)
Aside from overstating the impact of the 1941 invasion, the author also ignored the fact that most Asian peoples (the educated elites, say, in Hong Kong anyways) were aware of horrendous Japanese atrocities committed in Korea and China prior to the invasion. This is especially true in Hong Kong, where most of the upper class families had relations in the Japanese-invaded mainland. So they did not really have much of an anti-colonialism excuse. They had been compradors for the British in the past, and not they're merely switching masters. Racial tension and hatred against the White man played a relatively minor role.
Another thing the author failed to mention was how almost right after the Japanese invaded most SE Asian colonies, the ordinary people, who initially did buy in to the Japanese anti-Western propaganda, became aware of the tyrannical character of the Japanes occupation. How could they had not! Japanese sentinels was authorized to bayonet any "local" who failed to bow to the Imperial Japanese Army standard. Regardless of how people feel about race or racial relation pre-war, this probably was too much even for the most vehement anti-colonial activist to swallow, and most of them, Gen. Aung San for instance, organized anti-Japanese guerilla cells immediately.
I think the problem with the author is that he has been projecting our own experience in the United States into a wholy different historical arena. East Asia in 1930 is different from Postbellum America. Psychologically, most Asian peoples paid (and still pay) much more attention to kinship, ethnicity and nationality than to race. Race itself is a European-American construct, developed in late 19th century by pseudo-scientists of European (mostly German) and American origins. There is not a single country on the surface of Earth that was, is and tragically perhaps will be as race-conscious as the U.S., and it is plainly wrong to project the American mental frame onto what happened in 1940 Asia. As the reviewer below noted: ask any Chinese or South East Asian how they feel about the Japanese invaders and the American/British colonialists respectively, and you'll hear an entirely different story. The grudge against the Japanese Imperial forces is just so much more venomous. This makes sense, since after all the British and American had never bayonet and rape at will. And in light of the raping, looting and killing the Japanese had been doing, being blond-haired and blue-eyed just didn't mean much to the Asian peoples.
Euro-bashing to justify Japanese racism.......2005-03-23
This books fulfils the author's self-serving anti-western political agenda as it completely refuses to acknowledge the purpose and outcome of Japan's purported 'liberation' (ask anyone in South Vietnam what it means to be 'liberated') of Asia. The Japanese needed the Europeans out solely so they could continue their own barbaric imperialism plans. While the Japanese may have had some local sympathizers, these individuals contributed nothing to the Japanese overthrow of their 'oppressors' and quickly found that the Japanese had no more respect for them than their European 'masters' did and butchered Chinese wherever they could find them. The Germans were the great liberators in the Baltic States and we all know how that turned out. With regard to Thailand, it is a well known fact that they have never put up any resistance to any invader.
I traveled Asia extensively inthe 80's and so many times when I met older people who asked me where I was from, the first thing they would say after I told them America was " You saved us from the Japanese". After all those years and so many times...
Fills a gap in our memory of World War II.......2004-05-09
Gerald Horne has produced a remarkable work of World War II scholarship in "Race War." This is not normative history, which, for the layperson, is "history premised on the assumption that national institutions work more or less as advertised," as Civil Rights historian Charles Payne puts it. "Race War," on the contrary, effectively challenges typical preconceived notions about what specifically nation-states fought for and how ideas of race played out in World War II.
I learned more about WWII from this book than any book I can remember--not because other books aren't any good or anything like that, but because Horne looks under a particular rock of the war that it would be more pleasant to leave untouched: the white supremacy that was an inescapable part of the Allied cause (not that soldiers meant for it to be, but nonetheless, it's there). In memory, the war has been gilded as a clash of democracy against fascism. But forgotten in this, Horne writes, is the embarrassing fact that the defenders of democracy, the U.S. and Great Britain, were running a Jim Crow army and a force of colonized dark-skinned peoples, respectively. This paradox created a gaping chasm so big that the Japanese army almost marched right on through it.
Horne uses hard facts to remind us of race ideas that don't show up in normative histories, even though the ideas were on everyone's mind during the war. For example, in memory, Horne notes that you think of Hitler and the Holocaust when someone asks about race in the war. When the war was on, however, the question of race revolved around the Pacific and white Americans were most agitated by race ideas regarding the Japanese. In fact, Horne shows how the Allies basically use the same ol' white supremacist propaganda that stereotyped African Americans in the Jim Crow South. They just changed the cast slightly, subbing Japanese faces for African American faces atop monkey-like bodies.
Horne never defends Japan (he even says he would have fought against it--even though he would have been forced to fight for democracy while discriminated in a Jim Crow army) and makes clear that he's "rooting" for the Allies. But he insists that it is not right that we ignore what really went down. This is an attitude I would hope the American public would embrace as whole-heartedly as it has Brokaw's celebration of the "Greatest Generation" and Ambrose's "borrowed battle hymns of the republic" (as respected historian Timothy B. Tyson described the work of the popular writer). The negative comments of the reviewer below suggest he did not read the book, as he misrepresents arguments critical to the book. And that's too bad, because he would have benefited from reading "Race War."
Horne's work seems timely to me: it reminds us that racial justice is not just a matter of conscience, it is a matter of national security (a phrase that has recently received renewed currency, though we now suddenly and inexplicably speak of the nation as a "homeland"). Horne reminds us that, for example, the white supremacist policies of demagogic southern conservatives--for all their patriotic posturing--were the equivalent of adding a legion of soldiers to the Axis armies. Just as Emmett Till's murder showed up on the front page of "Pravda" during the fight for hearts and minds, the United States' enemies used the nation's white supremacy against it during WWII. As the United States again wages war in Asia, with its occupation of Iraq--a war wrought with perilous racial implications--Horne's message seems all the more like a fire bell in the night.
Thanks to Japan: Asia is free........2004-05-08
Gerald Horne makes point-by-point case to demonstrate how Japan psychologically represented non-whites in the Second World War against the whites and hence the war was nothing but a Race War - the name of the book. Horne has done a splendid job in interpreting events of history and rightly pointed out that U.S. propaganda essentially saw Second World War as a fight to resist a defeat in the hands of Asiatic people (for learning more on this issue, I will recommend John Dower's War without mercy: race & power in the Pacific war). Horne's thesis is not over-simplification of the history of the Second World War rather he fixed it. He has in fact straightened up all the tortuous arguments and cases made by the Western historians and exposed their hypocrisy of highlighting moral and heroic roles played by the U.S. to deter Japanese aggression.
There are several new things to learn from the book. First, why the Africans then living in U.S. mentally aligned themselves with Japanese and how FBI and U.S. propaganda machinery was trying to deal with this issue. It was good to know that Jessie Owens was shown a great deal of respect by the Nazis, contrary to the popularly held notion by the Americans that he was disrespected and ignored. Also, his demonstration of the fact that most of the Chinese residing in Singapore and Hong Kong colluded and sides with the advancing Japanese army simply because they just hated British oppression and inhuman subjugation is again something many Chinese need to know. Japanese strategy was to attack European and American imperialism by invading colonial bases in Asia-Pacific and drive them out which the colonized people viewed as liberation. I think, Horne has successfully got his message through that Japanese had not just wanted to liberate the Asian people from white oppression but also give the Asians a psychological and moral booster that whites are not invincible. In this process Japan had also liberated the whites from a superstitious mindset of white supremacy, which the westerners should thankfully accept.
Not a historically accurate argument.......2004-03-18
The basic treatise here is that because the White colonialists were racist against Asians the Japanese were able to make allies out of those same suppressed people against the United States and England. Unfortunately this is patently untrue. The Japanese themselves were the ones obsessed with Race as they invaded half of Asia to create a `co-prosperity sphere'. Of course the only people meant to prosper were the Japanese. Far from `turning racism on its head' the Japanese were far more imperious to the people they conquered then the U.S and English had ever been. In fact millions of Koreans, Indians, Thais, and Philippines were enslaved, raped and murdered during the war, not by the Americans(who they viewed as liberators) but by the Japanese occupation forces. In China, especially at Nanking, the Japanese entered into a war of extermination against the Chinese. Why? Well the patently racial doctrines convinced the soldiers that the enemy was `inferior' and this key point is missed in the text.
This books argument must be taken to task for it ignores the facts. The reading here doesn't fully explain the true affects that `racism' had on the Japanese mind set prior to the war. The Japanese didn't set out to `payback' the Europeans, rather they took the racial doctrines to heart and simply adopted them. In the end it was the Japanese offensive that used race as a motivator rather then the U.S and England. How else can one explain why all the nations of Asia viewed the Americans as liberators?
Seth J. Frantzman
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book on the origins of the Pacific War.......2003-12-30
Superbly well written book on how the Pacific War orginated and the basic thought pattern of the Japanese military thought prior to their attack on Pearl Harbor. I thought the author did an very good job in analyzing and thinking through the military, economic and political situation prior to the Pacific War. The book also goes into what the allies were thinking as well and their strategies in responding to the Japanese moves. The book covered the period up to April 1942. By then, allies strategic plans have gone down the wastebasket with Singapore and Bataan falling to the outnumbered Japanese. When I initially read this book, it was one of the first time I realized that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor may not have been a big as success as we Americans often thought it was. I realized now that Admiral Yamamoto's objective at Pearl Harbor should have been the naval base at Pearl Harbor instead of the ships. In many ways, the battleships were unimportant element in the overall scheme of thing. The base, was far more important then any group of ships! Interesting insight such as this can be found throughout this book which make it somewhat a necessary for any one interested in the Pacific War to read.
Readable.......2002-06-14
This is basically a book which examines Japan's rise to Empire, its motives for attacking the United States and starting the Pacific War, and the first six months of the course of the conflict.
The book's author is a reasonably prolific writer whose style is easy to read and unlike some popularisers he has a good grasp of his topic.
Japan's history is interesting as it opened up to the West and modernised at the time that the European Powers had carved up most of Asia and Africa as their private fiefdoms. The gospel of the time was a book written by Admiral Mahan called the Importance of Sea Power in History. Japan caught up in the fashions of the time decided to embark on the quest of Empire. They built a large army and navy to assist them. The basic problem was that to gain an empire they would have to divest someone else of it as most of the known world had been carved up.
Japan initially attacked China and Russia. By allying with Britain and fighting in the First World War it was able to gain a number of pacific Islands. During the 30's it embarked on a series of wars with China which gave it a huge amount of territory. The problem was that this antagonised the United States who imposed an oil embargo to try to stop the Chinese war. Japan was a country which was totally dependant on imported oil to supply its war machine. The embargo meant that it had about one years oil for its ships and about six months aviation fuel. Faced with either giving in or attacking, Japan decided on the later.
In reality this was a stupid decision. The Japanese by declaring war immediately started to have problems. It was reliant on imported raw materials for its industry and it imported food. The basis of its trade system was the use of foreign ships as well as its own. By declaring war Japan immediately lost the ability to use foreign ships. With its existing merchant marine Japan was barely able to transport essentials. In addition it had to conquer the oil rich areas of Indonesia within six months to be able to keep its economy going. It did not have enough Tankers to move the oil from the conquered regions if it was successful.
The reality of course was that Japan had stopped operating as a state in the early 1920's. Since that time authority had fragmented so that the decision to invade China rather than being the result of some considered policy was undertaken by army units which did not recognisee the central civil authority. Japan limped along with the real power being located in the various armed services but in reality even this power was fragmented.
The miracle was of course that in the first six months the Japanese were victorious everywhere. Of course after that they never won a battle.
This book is interesting as it explains the process. It is strongest in talking about the Japanese history and motives prior to the war. The coverage of the early campaigns is very readable but falls into some traps of previous histories.
For example the Japanese invasion of Malaya was against numerically superior forces. The numbers in favour of the defence was 5:2. For the British to lose required massive incompetence. In this campaign the British command effectively was hopeless dispersing its armies allowing them to be defeated in detail. Even at the point of surrender the Japanese had run out of ammunition and were about to withdraw. The author however accepts that there was some inevitability to what happened.
In much the same way, although he is critical of MacArhur in the Philippines, he again seems to accept the inevitability of Japanese victory. This is despite the fact that the American forces again were about twice that of the invading army, that the defending forces had tanks and aircraft and that the Japanese were poorly supplied.
Despite these minor criticisms the book is well researched and readable.
Book Description
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 violently changed the course of European History. Alarmed by Bismarck's territorial ambitions and the Prussian army's crushing defeats of Denmark in 1864 and Austria in 1866, French Emperor Napoleon III vowed to bring Prussia to heel. Digging into many European and American archives for the first time, Geoffrey Wawro's Franco-Prussian War describes the war that followed in thrilling detail. While the armies mobilized in July 1870, the conflict appeared "too close to call." Prussia and its German allies had twice as many troops as the French. But Marshal Achille Bazaine's grognards ("old grumblers") were the stuff of legend, the most resourceful, battle-hardened, sharp-shooting troops in Europe, and they carried the best rifle in the world. From the political intrigues that began and ended the war to the bloody battles at Gravelotte and Sedan and the last murderous fights on the Loire and in Paris, this is the definitive history of the Franco-Prussian War. Dr. Geoffrey Wawro is Professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Wawro has published two books: The Austro-Prussian War (Cambridge, 1996) and Warfare and Society in Europe, 1792-1914 (Routledge, 2000). He has published articles in The Journal of Military History, War in History, The International History Review, The Naval War College Review, American Scholar, and the European History Quarterly, and op-eds in the Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Miami Herald, Hartford Courant, and Providence Journal. Wawro has won several academic prizes including the Austrian Cultural Institute Prize and the Society for Military History Moncado Prize for Excellence in the Writing of Military History. He has lectured widely on military innovation and international security in Europe, the U.S., and Canada and is host of the History Channel program Hardcover History--a weekly book show with leading historians, pundits, critics, statesmen and journalists.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant.......2007-08-07
Not only does Wawro do a very creditable job of covering the color and drama of the war, but he does a brilliant job of explaining the broader issues. I teach foreign relations and, in just a few pages, Wawro does a better job of explaining how Napoleon III and Bismarck upset the European balance of power than any specialist writer in the field. He also does a superb job of explaining the significance of the revolution in weaponry and tactics that would come to fruition (or doom) in WWI. All done in a very readable and accessible style.
Not a Bad Place to Start.......2007-07-27
For those of the reading type who have never read anything on the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, Mr. Geoffrey Wawro's 2003 book on the subject is a good place to start. Mr. Wawro brings a 19th-Century European conflict to chaotic and bloody life, illustrating that these pre-World War conflicts were not the chivalric engagements they are often made out to be.
The book is structured as if for a lecture at a military university. Beginning with the reasons for the war, the author then moves step-by-step to the make-up of the opposing French and Prussian armies, to the mobilizations and then into a sequential listing of the battles. The prose is clean and very readable, and with the stripped-down structure of the book makes for a generally easily-understandable narrative. (The confusion--at least to this reviewer--is the same type found in most other operational military histories, that of trying to keep up with this Corps staffed by these Regiments who sent forward those Battalions against this Corps...) The battle scenes are brought to life by first-hand accounts dug up by the author from various archives and previous works, making for an engrossing recounting. Illustrated through Mr. Wawro's book is the effect this conflict had on the development of modern warfare, and the precedent it set for the next major European clash that came forty-three years later. The by-the-numbers explanation is what helps make this a great book for beginner students of this short but intense war.
On the question of a pro-German bias by the author, the verdict is still out. Even if Mr. Wawro were a "Rah-Rah Yay Germans!" type it is hard not to see that the Prussians were indeed the better-prepared nation for the duration of the war. The French put up good fights but had abysmal leadership, both on the political and military level. It is a surprise that Marshal Bazaine wasn't tried for gross and treasonous incompetence after the war. The Prussians planned everything as best they could in the scientific, detailed manner for which they've been endlessly stereotyped. The French leadership did little to prep and seemed to believe they would win based on their past greatness alone. While French troops did put devastating Chassepot rifle fire on the massed-infantry attacks the headstrong Prussians frequently resorted to, the 50-Points-for-Planning award would have to go the Germans on this one.
The main pet peeve that was needled more than once in this book were the editing errors, from incomplete or awkward sentences to the double-typed words that pop up in places. Overall, The Franco-Prussian War was a good read on an event that is frequently mentioned in Franco-German history but of which much may not be known.
I'm taking a star off..........2007-06-15
because the author is so obviously biased and so prone to evaluating things with an all-knowing self-satisfaction. Wawro is clearly a very bright man and has done some excellent research and analysis, but the tone is so off, and he exibits so little empathy for the problems of the French or the reality of the fog of war that it hurts what is overall an admirable operational history. Wawro is not as biased and contemptuous here as he is in his history of the 1866 war between Austria, most of the German States, and Prussia, but at times he comes close. And the last anecdote about the chicken is just embarrassing--I guess that sorry bird is supposed to show us that Germany was on the road to the Holocaust or some such nonsense. Good research and excellent writing, but the great book that Wawro may have in him didn't come to fruition here. I'm hoping that age brings the understanding, tolerance, and empathy that should temper his talent.
good book on a neglected war.......2007-02-08
This is an excellent book on the first modern war. A war which did so much to shape the modern world as the results helped lead the world towards the catastrophe of 1914. Fast paced and easy to read, it is perhaps more acessable to the general public than the other excellent one volume history in English by Michael Howard. Should be read in conjunction with the author's other book on the war of 1866.
It ain't Howard, but it ain't bad!.......2007-02-07
This isn't a substitute for wading through Sir Michael Howard's tome. But, it is a very readable book on a highly important war that set the stage for WWI. Good maps, excellent prose and good illustrations. If you want to read only one book on the Franco-Prussian war, you won't go wrong here. If you've read Howard, then it isn't going to provide any revelations.
Book Description
Raymond Pearson describes and explains the creation, maintenance, and eventual demise of the Soviet regime across post-1945 Eastern Europe, setting the so-called "Soviet Empire" within the broader context of global imperialism and decolonization. This revised and updated second edition features an expanded final chapter, more detailed analysis of key themes and events, and an extended bibliography. New documentation has also been incorporated to provide a fuller historical account of what may prove to be the 'Last Empire'.
Customer Reviews:
The story of Communist imperialism.......2007-08-14
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire traces the creation, expansion, maintenance and eventual demise of the Soviet Empire, one of history's greatest tyrranies, from 1945 to 1991.
He describes how the Soviet empire was indeed an imperialist venture (making it all the more absurd how Communists and their fellow travellers refer to the democratic West as 'imperialists').
The author describes the conflict between the forces of nationalism and freedom on the one hand against those of Communist imperialism on the other.
Indeed if you are truly against imperialism you will support nationalism and the nation-state.
The book refers to how East European independence was jointly obliterated by the Nazi and Soviet empires. About the Communist tactics of subjugating Eastern Europe to Communist tyrany after World War II, and the shameful British and American aquiescence in this (so soon after British appeasement of Hitler at Munich, 1938).
As the book traces the development of Stalinist and neo-Stalinist tyranny, we learn of internal Soviet political and economic developments, and the movements of nationalism and liberalism crushed by the Soviets over decades, before their eventual triumph over Communist despotism in 1989-1991.
Key points covered include the conflict between Yugoslav leader Tito and Stalin in the late 1940's and early 50's.
The brutal and bloody Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush nascent pro-democracy movements there.
25 000 Hungarians died in the Soviet invasion and crackdown of 1956.
Then we read of the dishonourable appeasement of Soviet tyranny by the West at Helsinki, 1975, and the crushing of Solidarity and the pro-democracy movement in Poland in 1981.
The book then traces the reforms of Gorbachev to the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, and the fall of Communist dictatorships in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria that year.
Two years later the Soviet Union itself collapsed with the independence of the 15 republics that made up the Soviet Union.
The book highlights some interesting facts. For example that the two predecessors of the Soviet Empire were the pre-war Soviet Union and the Nazi Neordnung.
"Over 1939-45, the German Empire self-interestedly liquidated many of the indigenous political cadres of Eastern Europe, inadvertently clearing away the opposition for it's imperial sucessr. By the irony of history, the New Order unwittingly did much of the Soviet Empire's dirty work for it, creating a power vacuum, which the beleagured Soviet Union found impossible to resist over the later 1940s. In effect...the wartime Nazi 'New Order' facilitated a postwar Soviet 'Newer Order'. Given it's parentage it comes as no surprise that the Soviet Empire was seen by many hostile contemporaries as a 'Soviet Ordnung' or 'Stalinist Reich', inheriting the genetic characteristics of both forebears".
Pearson describes something of the nature of life in the Soviet Empire: like the fabled Narnia of CS Lewis, the Soviet Empire remained a joyless land where there was always winter, but never Christmas.
The West has fought two struggles for freedom against forces of world tyranny in the last century, first against Nazism, then against Communist and now is fighting a third strugle against hegemonic Islamic fundamnetalism, which is backed by the international left.
Quick and Informative History of the Soviet Empire 1945-1991.......2001-01-10
This book actually is about two empires -- the "Inner Empire" of the Soviet Union and the "Outer Empire" of the Soviet Bloc. The book is exceedingly well written and hard to put down. Though it ignores broad swaths of Soviet history (military confrontation with the west, relationship with China, etc), it admits that it doesn't tell all, and, more importantly, tells what it does very clearly.
The crisises of 1956, 1968, and 1980 are examined in detail, and throughout humor is used to get the point across (such at the Kiti-Kat fiasco, and contemporary Soviet and Eastern European jokes about the regime).
Book Description
An authoritative political history of one of the world's most important empires on the road to decolonisation. Ronald Hyam offers a major reassessment of the end of empire which combines a study of British policymaking with case studies on the experience of decolonization across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. He describes the dysfunctional policies of an imperial system coping with postwar, interwar and wartime crises from 1918 to 1945 but the main emphasis is on the period after 1945 and the gradual unravelling of empire as a result of international criticism, and the growing imbalance between Britain's capabilities and its global commitments. He analyses the transfers of power from India in 1947 to Swaziland in 1968, the major crises such as Suez and assesses the role of leading figures from Churchill, Attlee and Eden to Macmillan and Wilson. This is essential reading for scholars and students of empire and decolonisation.
Book Description
Geoffrey Ellis offers an up-to-date synthesis of recent research into the aims and effects of Napoleonic rule in France and in conquered Europe. Thoroughly revised, this second edition provides much more extensive coverage of Napoleon's treatment of the annexed lands and subject states of the "Grand Empire", as well as of military conscription and desertion, and the role of the Gendarmerie in the war against brigands and military defaulters. The legacy of Napoleonic rule is discussed in greater depth, and the book also features a more comprehensive bibliography.
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