Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944--45

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Review ------ ‘A monumental achievement…compassionate but unsparing in its judgements.’ Sunday Times ‘An outstandingly gripping and authoritative account of the battle for Japan, and a monument to human bravery and savagery.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Absolutely excellent.’ John Simpson, Observer ‘Magisterial…it is truly cathartic to reach the end of the Second World War in Hastings’s company.’ The Times ‘Brilliantly though Hastings lays out the strategic context, his real talent lies in his account of the “terrible human experience” that it involved…This is a book for anyone who wants to understand what happened in half the world during one of the bloodiest periods of the blood-soaked 20th century.’ Spectator ‘Spectacular…Hastings makes important points about the war in the East that have been all too rarely heard…excellent…compelling…searingly powerful.’ Sunday Telegraph ‘As Hastings brilliantly describes, conditions for fighting men on both sides were appalling…the fire-bombing of Tokyo and the decision to drop the atomic bombs were influenced by the urge to 'get this business over with', but the argument, as Hastings explains so well with his usual exemplary judgement, is far more complex.’ Financial Times Synopsis -------- A masterly narrative history of the climactic battles of the Second World War, and companion volume to his bestselling 'Armageddon', by the pre-eminent historian Max Hastings. The battle for Japan that ended many months after the battle for Europe involved enormous naval, and air operations from the borders of India to the most distant regions of China. There is no finer chronicler of these events than the great historian Max Hastings, whose gripping account explores not just the global strategic objectives of the USA, Japan and Britain but also the first-hand experiences of the airmen, sailors and soldiers of all the countries who participated in the Far East and the war in the Pacific.The big moments in the story are chosen to reflect a wide variety of human experience: the great naval battle of Leyte Gulf; the under-reported war in China; the re-conquest of Burma by the British Army under General Slim; MacArthur's follies in the Philippines; the Marines on Iwojima and Okinawa; LeMay's fire-raising Super-fortress assaults on Japan; the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Naaki; the kamikaze pilots of Japan; the almost unknown Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria in the last days of the war, as Stalin hastened to gather the spoils; and the terrible final acts across Japanese-occupied Asia. This is classic, epic history -- both in the content and the manner of telling.