Over recent decades, John W. Dower, one of America's preeminent historians, has addressed the roots and consequences of war from multiple perspectives. In War Without Mercy, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, he described and analyzed the brutality that attended World War II in the Pacific, as seen from both the Japanese and the American sides. Embracing Defeat, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, dealt with Japan's struggle to start over in a shattered land in the immediate aftermath of the Pacific War, when the defeated country was occupied by the U.S.-led Allied powers. Turning to an even larger canvas, Dower now examines the cultures of war revealed by four powerful events—Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, and the invasion of Iraq in the name of a war on terror. The list of issues examined and themes explored is wide-ranging: failures of intelligence and imagination, wars of choice and "strategic imbecilities," faith-based secular thinking as well as more overtly holy wars, the targeting of noncombatants, and the almost irresistible logic—and allure—of mass destruction. Dower's new work also sets the U.S. occupations of Japan and Iraq side by side in strikingly original ways. One of the most important books of this decade, Cultures of War offers comparative insights into individual and institutional behavior and pathologies that transcend "cultures" in the more traditional sense and that ultimately go beyond war-making alone.
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"The sort of book I would like to be able to write in 2o years' time ..." — Philip (5 out of 5 stars)
"The sort of book I would like to be able to write in 2o years' time ..."
An unrelenting, incisive, masterly comparative study.
" The most important book I read in 2011. "
" Not a bad book but also a flawed analysis of the subject matter. Overall I wasnt impressed. "
" I knew most of the Iraq analysis. We're too close or the information is permanently lost. "
" Interesting, but not what I'm looking for right now. "
" Good comparative history "
John W. Dower is an author, professor, and historian. His book Embracing Defeat won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft, and the Yamagata Banto Prize. In 2004, he was awarded the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award, in recognition of his decisive and influential contribution to the study of history.
Kevin Foley, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, has more than thirty years of experience in radio and television broadcasting, commercial voice-overs, and audiobook narration. He has recorded more than 150 audiobooks, including River Thunder by Gary McCarthy, for which he earned a Spur Award for Best Audiobook from the Western Writers of America.
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