Refighting the Pacific War and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more

Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Start reading Refighting the Pacific War on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Refighting the Pacific War: An Alternative History of World War II [Hardcover]

Jim Bresnahan
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
List Price: CDN$ 30.50
Price: CDN$ 23.51 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
You Save: CDN$ 6.99 (23%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Only 1 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Wednesday, May 22? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout.

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition CDN $15.14  
Hardcover CDN $23.51  

Book Description

Sep 15 2011
Refighting the Pacific War looks at how World War II in the Pacific might have unfolded differently, giving historians, authors and veterans the opportunity to discuss what happened and what might have happened. Contributors to this alternative history include noted military historians William Bartsch, John Burton, Donald Goldstein, John Lundstrom, Robert Mrazek, Jon Parshall, Douglas Smith, Peter Smith, Barrett Tillman, Anthony Tully, and H. P. Willmott. In all more than thirty Pacific War experts will provide commentary, employing a roundtable panel discussion format. The reader will hear from the experts on how history could and could not have been altered during the course of the war in the Pacific. With multiple opinions, the reader will be provided with an interesting collection of divergent views about the outcome of the war. Refighting the Pacific War focuses largely on naval battles and campaigns, including Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. While the main concentration is on the major naval actions, the book also delves into key island battles, like Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, as well as pre-war and post-war political issues The panelists debate questions like whether the Japanese could have inflicted even greater damage on the U. S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and how Yamamoto might have won at Midway and how such a victory might have impacted the direction of the war. The book extensively studies the opening year of the war when the Japanese war machine seemed unstoppable. Also explored is whether the Pacific War was inevitable and whether the conflict could have ended without the use of the atomic bomb.Vice Admiral Yoji Koda, Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (Ret.), provides the book's Introduction.

Refighting the Pacific War looks at how World War II in the Pacific might have unfolded differently, giving historians, authors and veterans the opportunity to discuss what happened and what might have happened. Contributors to this alternative history include noted military historians William Bartsch, John Burton, Donald Goldstein, John Lundstrom, Robert Mrazek, Jon Parshall, Douglas Smith, Peter Smith, Barrett Tillman, Anthony Tully, and H. P. Willmott. In all more than thirty Pacific War experts will provide commentary, employing a roundtable panel discussion format. The reader will hear from the experts on how history could and could not have been altered during the course of the war in the Pacific. With multiple opinions, the reader will be provided with an interesting collection of divergent views about the outcome of the war. Refighting the Pacific War focuses largely on naval battles and campaigns, including Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. While the main concentration is on the major naval actions, the book also delves into key island battles, like Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, as well as pre-war and post-war political issues The panelists debate questions like whether the Japanese could have inflicted even greater damage on the U. S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and how Yamamoto might have won at Midway and how such a victory might have impacted the direction of the war. The book extensively studies the opening year of the war when the Japanese war machine seemed unstoppable. Also explored is whether the Pacific War was inevitable and whether the conflict could have ended without the use of the atomic bomb.Vice Admiral Yoji Koda, Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (Ret.), provides the book's Introduction.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product Details


Product Description

About the Author

Jim Bresnahan, a broadcast journalist, is also the author of Revisioning the Civil War: Historians on Counter-Factual Scenarios, a book that looks at how Civil War history might have been different and Play It Again: Baseball Experts on What Might Have Been, a book that focuses on how the history of baseball could have been changed.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Customer Reviews

5 star
0
3 star
0
2 star
0
1 star
0
4.0 out of 5 stars
4.0 out of 5 stars
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Insight into Possible Scenarios Sep 26 2012
By MCIng
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A great book with thought-provoking answers to possible scenarios in the Pacific War. It answers many questions and thoughts that I have had as I have studied the conflict. In some scenarios, the historians may unanimously agree on the possible outcomes while in other scenarios, the historians' views on the outcomes may vary significantly. I would have liked the book even more if there were more sections (chapters) dealing with the events in 1943 through to the end of the war in 1945; in other words, the book covers too much -in my opinion- of the events from the pre-war years to 1942. Overall, a pleasure to read and the book has helped me to understand more about the events and circumstances of the Pacific War.
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 4.1 out of 5 stars  9 reviews
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A new look at the key events of World War II in the Pacific Aug 23 2011
By R. W. Russell - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
This book is a significant departure from the usual naval history publication. Instead of researching and writing on a topic, author-editor James Bresnahan has assembled a panel of historians and veterans who contributed their responses to a number of key questions about World War II in the Pacific; each question being of the "what if" category. The result is historical analysis that leads the reader to a new awareness of how the Pacific War was shaped in large measure by seemingly minor but ultimately important occurrences that reasonably could have turned out differently.

The questions posed range from matters concerning the Washington Naval Arms treaty in 1922 to the administration of postwar Japan in the late 1940s, and everything in between. The panel explores "what-ifs" at almost every major clash in the Pacific as well as several political issues directly related to the war. Participants on the panel include authors John Lundstrom, Jon Parshall, Anthony Tully, Barrett Tillman, Robert Mrazek, Stephan Regan, Donald Goldstein, Peter Smith, and H. P. Wilmott, among others. The panel also includes several veterans of the Pacific battles under discussion.

While the give-and-take among the panel is very illuminating, readers need to get past some confusion factors upon starting the book. First, the subtitle: this book is by no means an "alternative history of World War II." That was the publisher's choice, not the author's, and its quite wrong. Alternative history is fictitious history, and this book is not fiction. Those who might dismiss it upon first glance due to its title should give it a second look.

Next, there's the matter of the panel: who and where are they? The panel is the core of the entire book, but the publisher has elected to hide their names and biographical data at the end, sandwiched almost like an afterthought between the bibliography and the index. Upon starting Chapter One, you'll encounter writings by panelists you know nothing about unless you look them up one at a time in the back of the book. Knowing the panelists is essential to the reader; they should have been introduced at the outset.

Finally there's the foreword, by Japanese MSDF Vice Admiral Yoji Koda. The problem is that the publisher has inexplicably labeled the foreword as the "Introduction," which is ordinarily written by the author. You have to flip to the last page, with Admiral Koda's signature, to reveal that you're not reading an introduction to the book by its author, as one would expect in just about any book.

But none of those glitches are the author's fault, and they are peripheral to the heart of the book--the insightful exchange among the panelists. Once you get past the publisher's minor gaffs, "Refighting the Pacific War" is a thoroughly interesting read.
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read, but ultimately unsatisfying Sep 30 2011
By Bruno - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book takes opinions from a variety of historians and participants of the Pacific war during WWII and asks "what if?" questions over key issues and turning points.

Great idea for a book. And there are some interesting comments and scenarios covered. However, the format leaves precious little space for most comments, and they are therefore short on details and somewhat superficial for the reader who already has an extensive reading history on this topic. I was always wanting more from each writer.

There were also a few historical inaccuracies from what I presume were professional historians, which I hoped would be addressed by the editor or rebutted by other experts. Also, a few of the conclusions were simply wrong
and some of the alternate history scenarios were pretty speculative.

Jon Parshall and his partner Tully are probably the definitive experts on Midway today, but I found their input to be less in that section than expected. Amusingly some of the other commenters repeated errors from past research that their book "Shattered Sword" debunked a few years back. Parshall also had the habit of not answering the editor's actual question due to disagreements with its premise. He's probably correct, but I'd still like to have heard his answer to that question.

A decent book, but it could have been triple the size as there is much to say and unfortunately the answers are mostly a few paragraphs to a couple of pages.

Barrett Tillman and others made some interesting points about Waldron and Torpedo 8's "unauthorized" change of course and the resulting political decicions that would have occured had they tried to court martial him. Had Waldron survived, Stanhope Ring may never have made Admiral, much less one with 3 stars. Mitscher may have been overrated and had his career cut short.

But not all conclusions were good ones in this book:

One writer made a very good point about how not nuking Japan would have lead to more deaths, (7 million I believe from starvation related causes), but then comes up with the wrong conclusion! (that it was a mistake to drop it). Well, if 7M die instead of 150,000 and the war ends faster and the USSR doesn't occupy half of Japan, where's the mistake?

A solid book that illustrates that even the experts can't learn everything themselves and you're best served by reading more than one book on each topic and double checking conclusions. I'd also liked to have had each writer's quick bio presented under his name so I could quickly see where his biases and expertise lay when evaluating the worth of his conclusions.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars intriguing look at "what if?" Nov 2 2011
By J. E. Smith - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Most of us just assume that the outcome of World War II was a sure thing, that a U.S. triumph over Japan and Nazi Germany was inevitable.
Not so. Historians and veterans of that era know that a fortunate combination of actions, command decisions and pure luck gave us victory after a four-year slog through Europe and the vast Pacific.
Author/editor Jim Bresnahan has pulled some of those veterans and historians together in this book to talk about what might have happened - and what might have gone wrong - in the war against Japan. The results are scary, to say the least.
If the Imperial Japanese Navy had thrown a third wave of planes against Pearl Harbor, if one defiant American pilot had not disobeyed his superior, if one admiral had been in command rather than another - the stories of the Day of Infamy, the decisive battle of Midway and several other actions would have ended differently.
This book is just as long as it needs to be, with enough information and careful speculation to satisfy the inquisitive reader, but not so much it becomes boring. All the contributors, whether they agree or disageee, get a chance to make their cases in answer to the editor's fascinating "what if?" questions.
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Amazon.ca Privacy Statement Amazon.ca Shipping Information Amazon.ca Returns & Exchanges