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| Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 | 
 enlarge | Author: Max Hastings
Publisher: HarperPress
Category: Book
List Price: £25.00
Buy New: £13.14
You Save: £11.86 (47%)
New (29) from £9.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 4038
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 2.3
ISBN: 0007219822
EAN: 9780007219827
ASIN: 0007219822
Publication Date: October 1, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
A Very Good Lucid Overview of the Subject January 27, 2008
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book gives a good overview of the campaign against Japan during the years 1944 to 1945. Hastings' fluid style and excellent layout of the book make the somewhat daunting 600 page narrative a reasonably easy read. Many interviews have been conducted with combatants of all the nations involved in the campaign and these add an insight into what some of the terrible battles were actually like for the participants. The experiences of the occupied and imprisoned are also included. Hastings is excellent at drawing character sketches of all the leading figures, military and civilian, who played a part and these add much to the interest of the story. The familiar actions in Burma, the US naval war, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa are covered. A critical appraisal of LeMay's B29 devastation of Japanese cities versus the less well known American submarine blockade of Japan will be new to many readers. The war in China is also covered to some extent as are the roles of the Chinese Nationalist and Communist armies, again perhaps, unfamiliar ground. Surprisingly the least well handled section is that on the use of the atomic bombs where the narrative thrust becomes lost in a web of argument and counter-argument as Hastings clearly tries to cover all points. Although not a definitive account of the subject this is, nevertheless, a very good book.
 A masterpiece January 12, 2008
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
There can be few, even knowledgeable, students of the Second World War who will not learn much from this really impressive book. Max Hastings has already contributed some masterly WW2 histories but this must be his finest. It is one of the best histories of the War that I have ever read.
What impresses most is the scope and breadth of this book. All the major campaigns are covered and their relative importance made clear. The British campaign in Burma was never much more than a side-show, no matter how that fact must pain the dogged combatants under Bill Slim who drove the Japanese out. The relatively little known but hugely successful American submarine war against Japan's shipping is given its proper due.
None of the combatants fought a very clean war (if there can be such a thing). The Americans slaughtered many Japanese civilians and prisoners and their campaign seems to have been fuelled by a hatred of Japanese that they did not feel towards the Germans. However, upon reading of the many and hideous atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese - many denied or overlooked by Japan even today - the hatred of them by their opponents seems all too understandable. The last-minute declaration of war against Japan by Stalin, that cynical opportunist, unleashed the Red Army upon Manchuria, in the full plunder and rape mode that made them dreaded for decades to come.
Even today the dropping of atomic bombs by the United States upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains perhaps the most controversial act of the War and some think the greatest atrocity. Hastings gives much of the detail of the attacks themselves and the thinking behind them. He also reveals that the planned November 1945 invasion of Kyushu, Japan's southern island, by the Americans was not that likely to be undertaken. The Americans were coming round more to a strategy of bombing and starving the Japanese into submission, rather than suffer the appalling casualties that an invasion of Kyushu would produce. It also seems to have been conventional wisdom up to now that the two atomic weapons dropped on Japan on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 were the only ones in the American armoury and that no more would be available for several months at least. However, it seems that a third weapon would have been available by 19th August and that the target could have been Tokyo.
Fortunately, the third atomic bomb was not necessary. The Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, who had allowed, on the most charitable view, the military to take over the running of the country and plunge it into a war dominated by Japanese atrocities, at last partially redeemed himself and ordered them to surrender unconditionally. The atomic bombs had definitely changed Japanese thinking and brought the War to a premature end - there seems little doubt that the countless lives saved more than outweighed the casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In many ways this is a sickening book to read. The ruinous potential for Man's inhumanity to Man comes over with great force. It should be compulsory reading for all the World's leaders. The desperate problems posed to Civilisation by the Axis were solved by going to war but the cost was prohibitive and atomic weapons raised that cost to insupportable levels. There can only ever be one more War like it - the last.
Max Hastings has done a considerable service by writing this book and reminding present generations of the truly appalling costs in blood and treasure of the last World War. It does help to give a better perspective on the different, and I suggest less difficult, problems that we face today.
Superb counterpart to Armegeddon January 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
For those of you who thought the Pacific War was largely limited to the island hopping campaign then dropping two atomic bombs to finish the war - this book explodes the myths in a superbly readable style.
I;m not sure I can justice to a 700 page volume in a short review but there are some highlights
Japanese brutality in China and Manchuria
The mindset that permitted kamakasi attacks
The explanation of what McArthur was like - but how he came into his own after the war ended
The huge destruction wrought by the US air force on Japan - made Bomber Harris look a bit ineffectual (and thats not the atomic bombs either..)
The Germans U-boats may have tried to blockade the UK - the US boats did it for Japan
The inter ally rivalries - Stalin in particular and how the US were determined that they would be pereived to have finished off Japan
The refusal of the Japanese to acknowledge what they had done to the civilan populations
The credit given to General Slim for the campaign to recapture Burma
emminently readable and well worth it
Long but keeps the attention very well for a non expert reader January 2, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am not a fan of military histories really but this one kept my full attention. It interweaves brilliantly the political context of the Far East War with first hand accounts from those on the front line. The whole thing is cleverly brought to life. The big strategic picture is built up little by little, so that, by the end, I felt I really understood this. It's a long read but worth getting through.
Max Hastings is quick to give some pretty forthright opinions (e.g. about General MacArthur, the morals of the Japanese, and whether it was right to drop the atom bomb) but they seem well evidenced and argued. Even so, it leaves me wanting to find other opinions to compare.
Hastings' Masterpiece November 30, 2007
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
Nemesis will be, I think, regarded as a classic of the Pacific War. I live in the states and decided to bypass the six month waiting period for Knopf to publish it in favor of the UK edition.
I'm glad I did. I've read countless books on the Pacific, including Ron Spector's classic "Eagle Against the Sun," and I say with no uncertainty that this book will likely be regarded as one of the five most important books ever published on that particular war.
Whereas most historians approach the subject with a certain agenda, Hastings does not do so here. He portrays the ENTIRE Pacific campaign, from all views. The Yanks and of course, the Japanese are represented, but it's his inclusion of Slim's magnificent 14th Army, the Chinese (both Nationalist and Communist) the Soviets, the Aussies...In fact, there are so many viewpoints it's hard to see what he doesn't include.
As with his previous works, Hastings does dole out his critiques. The Japanese; their lack of strategic vision in preparing their nation for a global war, their disdain for the enemy and accordingly appaling treatment of Allied prisoners. But he also praises their courage and will to resist beyond all reason. MacArthur is seen as a megalomaniac (for which he definitely was) and while noting the massive suffering of the Chinese, he takes Chang Kai-shek to task for his corrupt Kuomintang forces and their lack of will to resist the Japanese advance.
He praises (quite rightly too) Bill Slim even though the struggle for Burma contributed almost nothing towards Japan's defeat, the US Navy is praised (especially the Submarine Arm), but he does note the difference of living quality between officers and enlisted men, Curtis Lemay's ruthless aerial campaign and of course, the Marines.
Exhaustively researched, magnificently written and brilliantly argued, this book might well be viewed as the definitive portrait of the last two years of the Pacific War. 5 Stars!
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