Ronald H. Spector's Books

Eagle Against the Sun

The American War with Japan

By: Ronald H. Spector

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Eagle Against the Sun

The American War with Japan

By: Ronald H. Spector

“The best book by far on the Pacific War” (The New York Times Book Review), this classic one-volume history of World War II in the Pacific draws on declassified intelligence files; British, American, and Japanese archival material; and military memoirs to provide a stunning and complete history of the conflict. This “superbly readable, insightful, gripping” (Washington Post Book World) contribution to WWII history combines impeccable research with electrifying detail and offers provocative interpretations of this brutal forty-four-month struggle. Author and historian Ronald H. Spector reassesses US and Japanese strategy and shows that the dual advance across the Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz was more a pragmatic solution to bureaucratic, doctrinal, and public relations problems facing the Army and Navy than a strategic calculation. He also argues that Japan made its fatal error not in the Midway campaign but in abandoning its offensive strategy after that defeat and allowing itself to be drawn into a war of attrition. Spector skillfully takes us from top-secret strategy meetings in Washington, London, and Tokyo to distant beaches and remote Asian jungles with battle-weary GIs. He reveals that the US had secret plans to wage unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan months before Pearl Harbor and shows that MacArthur and his commanders ignored important intercepts of Japanese messages that would have saved thousands of lives in Papua and Leyte. Throughout, Spector contends that American decisions in the Pacific War were shaped more often by the struggles between the British and the Americans, and between the Army and the Navy, than by strategic considerations. Spector vividly recreates the major battles, little-known campaigns, and unfamiliar events leading up to the deadliest air raid ever, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the American war in the Pacific and the people and forces that determined its outcome.

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Page Count

624

Publisher

Free Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1982135239

ISBN 13

9781982135232

In the Ruins of Empire

The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia

By: Ronald Spector

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In the Ruins of Empire

The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia

By: Ronald Spector

The New York Times said of Ronald H. Spector’s classic account of the American struggle against the Japanese in World War II, “No future book on the Pacific War will be written without paying due tribute to Eagle Against the Sun.” Now Spector has returned with a book that is even more revealing. In the Ruins of Empire chronicles the startling aftermath of this crucial twentieth-century conflict. With access to recently available firsthand accounts by Chinese, Japanese, British, and American witnesses and previously top secret U.S. intelligence records, Spector tells for the first time the fascinating story of the deadly confrontations that broke out–or merely continued–in Asia after peace was proclaimed at the end of World War II. Under occupation by the victorious Allies, this part of the world was plunged into new power struggles or back into old feuds that in some ways were worse than the war itself. In the Ruins of Empire also shows how the U.S. and Soviet governments, as they secretly vied for influence in liberated lands, were soon at odds. At the time of the peace declaration, international suspicions were still strong. Joseph Stalin warned that “crazy cutthroats” might disrupt the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay. Die-hard Japanese officers plotted to seize the emperor’s palace to prevent an announcement of surrender, and clandestine relief forces were sent to rescue thousands of Allied POWs to prevent their being massacred. In the Ruins of Empire paints a vivid picture of the postwar intrigues and violence. In Manchuria, Russian “liberators” looted, raped, and killed innocent civilians, and a fratricidal rivalry continued between Chiang Kai-shek’s regime and Mao’s revolutionaries. Communist resistance forces in Malaya settled old scores and terrorized the indigenous population, while mujahideen holy warriors staged reprisals and terror killings against the Chinese–hundreds of innocent civilians were killed on both sides. In Indochina, a nativist political movement rose up to oppose the resumption of French colonial rule; one of the factions that struggled for supremacy was the Communist Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh. Korea became a powder keg with the Russians and Americans entangled in its north and south. And in Java, as the Indonesian novelist Idrus wrote, people brutalized by years of Japanese occupation “worshipped a new God in the form of bombs, submachine guns, and mortars.” Through impeccable research and provocative analysis, as well as compelling accounts of American, British, Indian, and Australian soldiers charged with overseeing the surrender and repatriation of millions of Japanese in the heart of dangerous territory, Spector casts new and startling light on this pivotal time–and sets the record straight about this contested and important period in history.

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Page Count

402

Publisher

Random House

Published Date

ISBN 10

1588367215

ISBN 13

9781588367211

A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

By: Ronald H. Spector

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A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

By: Ronald H. Spector

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2022 "Marvelous.…Spector’s gripping book.…[helps] us to understand why the legacy of these conflicts is still with us today." —Sheila Miyoshi Jager, New York Times Book Review The end of World War II led to the United States’ emergence as a global superpower. For war-ravaged Western Europe it marked the beginning of decades of unprecedented cooperation and prosperity that one historian has labeled “the long peace.” Yet half a world away, in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, and Malaya—the fighting never really stopped, as these regions sought to completely sever the yoke of imperialism and colonialism with all-too-violent consequences. East and Southeast Asia quickly became the most turbulent regions of the globe. Within weeks of the famous surrender ceremony aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, civil war, communal clashes, and insurgency engulfed the continent, from Southeast Asia to the Soviet border. By early 1947, full-scale wars were raging in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, with growing guerrilla conflicts in Korea and Malaya. Within a decade after the Japanese surrender, almost all of the countries of South, East, and Southeast Asia that had formerly been conquests of the Japanese or colonies of the European powers experienced wars and upheavals that resulted in the deaths of at least 2.5 million combatants and millions of civilians. With A Continent Erupts, acclaimed military historian Ronald H. Spector draws on letters, diaries, and international archives to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive military history and analysis of these little-known but decisive events. Far from being simply offshoots of the Cold War, as they have often been portrayed, these shockingly violent conflicts forever changed the shape of Asia, and the world as we know it today.

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Page Count

668

Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

Published Date

ISBN 10

0393254666

ISBN 13

9780393254662

Advice And Support: The Early Years 1941-1960 [Illustrated Edition]

By: Ronald H. Spector

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Advice And Support: The Early Years 1941-1960 [Illustrated Edition]

By: Ronald H. Spector

Includes over 75 maps, photos and plans. The present volume describes the activities of the U.S. Army in Vietnam during World War II, military advice and assistance to the French government during the immediate post-war years, and the advisory program that developed after the Geneva Agreements of 1954. Its scope ranges from high-level policy decisions to low-echelon advisory operations in the field, presented against a background of relevant military and political developments. The author enjoyed access to the official records of the period and examined personal papers, interviews, other documentary sources, and miscellaneous published materials. Useful not only as a study of military assistance but as a view of the Army as an agent of national policy, this volume is a fitting introduction to the overall study of the conflict in Vietnam.

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Page Count

812

Publisher

Pickle Partners Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1782899065

ISBN 13

9781782899068

Eagle Against the Sun

The American War with Japan

By: Ronald H. Spector

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Eagle Against the Sun

The American War with Japan

By: Ronald H. Spector

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Page Count

624

Publisher

Free Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1982135239

ISBN 13

9781982135232

In the Ruins of Empire

The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia

By: Ronald Spector

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In the Ruins of Empire

The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia

By: Ronald Spector

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Page Count

402

Publisher

Random House

Published Date

ISBN 10

1588367215

ISBN 13

9781588367211

At War at Sea

Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century

By: Ronald H. Spector

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At War at Sea

Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century

By: Ronald H. Spector

Beginning with a gripping account of one of the most decisive naval battles in history-the 1905 battle of Tsushima between the Japanese and Russians-and ending with the sophisticated missile engagements of the Falklands and in the Persian Gulf, naval historian Ronald Spector explores every facet of the past one hundred years of naval warfare. Drawing from more than one hundred diaries, memoirs, letters, and interviews, this is, above all, a masterful narrative of the human side of combat at sea-real stories told from the point of view of the sailors who experienced it. Exhaustively researched and fascinating in detail, At War at Sea is a monumental history of the men, the ships, and the battles fought on the high seas. "Superb . . . Spector's account provides evocative and fresh perspectives on cultures, technologies and innovations that influenced sailors' lives and shaped naval warfare." (The San Diego Union-Tribune) "Monumental . . . Many books have recorded the history of the United States Navy, but few have meshed that history with that of all other major navies-an unusual comparative technique that brings into often startling relief the virtues and flaws of our own navy." (The Washington Post)

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Page Count

497

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0140246010

ISBN 13

9780140246018

At War at Sea

Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century

By: Ronald H. Spector

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At War at Sea

Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century

By: Ronald H. Spector

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497

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0140246010

ISBN 13

9780140246018

A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

By: Ronald H. Spector

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A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

By: Ronald H. Spector

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

668

Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

Published Date

ISBN 10

0393254666

ISBN 13

9780393254662

Book's by Ronald H. Spector

Eagle Against the Sun

Eagle Against the Sun

In the Ruins of Empire

In the Ruins of Empire

A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

Advice And Support: The Early Years 1941-1960 [Illustrated Edition]

Advice And Support: The Early Years 1941-1960 [Illustrated Edition]

Eagle Against the Sun

Eagle Against the Sun

In the Ruins of Empire

In the Ruins of Empire

At War at Sea

At War at Sea

At War at Sea

At War at Sea

A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955

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