The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 (Modern Library War)

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.”

• Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
• Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan
• Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
• Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story (Bluejacket Books)
• The Second World War Asia and the Pacific Atlas (West Point Millitary History Series)
• Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography
• The Last 100 Days: The Tumultuous and Controversial Story of the Final Days of World War II in Europe (Modern Library War)
• The Pacific War: 1941-1945
• Gulag: A History