Storm Clouds over the Pacific, 1931-1941

by Peter Harmsen

Overview

“An excellent primer about World War II in Asia prior to the involvement of the United States”—part one of a fascinating history trilogy (New York Journal of Books).
 
War in the Far East is a trilogy of books offering the most complete narrative yet written about the Pacific Theater of World War II, and the first truly international treatment of the epic conflict. Historian Peter Harmsen weaves together a complex and revealing narrative, including facets of the war that are often overlooked in historic narratives. He explores the war in subarctic conditions on the Aleutians; details the mass starvations in China, Indochina, and India; and offers a range of perspectives on the war experience, from the Oval Office to the blistering sands of Peleliu.
 
Storm Clouds Over the Pacific begins the story long before Pearl Harbor, showing how the war can only be understood if ancient hatreds and long-standing geopolitics are taken into account. Harmsen demonstrates how Japan and China’s ancient enmity led to increased tensions in the 1930s, which, in turn, exploded into conflict in 1937.
 
The battles of Shanghai and Nanjing were followed by the Battle of Taierzhuang in 1938, China’s only major victory. A war of attrition continued up to 1941, the year when Japan made the momentous decision to pursue all-out war. The infamous attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into the war, as the Japanese also overran British and Dutch territories throughout the western Pacific.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612004815
Publisher:	Casemate Publishers
Publication date:	01/10/2020
Series:	War in the Far East , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	36,259
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Peter Harmsen, a foreign correspondent in East Asia for two decades, has worked for Bloomberg, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and the Financial Times. A fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese, Harmsen is also the former bureau chief in Taiwan for French news agency AFP. His book Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze inspired a US Public Television documentary by three-time Emmy Award winner Bill Einreinhofer, which started airing in the fall of 2018, reaching 80 percent of the American television audience. Harmsen’s work has been translated into Chinese, Danish, and Romanian.
Peter Harmsen, PhD, is the author of New York Times bestseller Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze and Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City, as well as the War in the Far East trilogy. He studied history at National Taiwan University and has been a foreign correspondent in East Asia for more than two decades. He has focused mainly on the Chinese-speaking societies but has reported from nearly every corner of the region, including Mongolia and North Korea. His books have been translated into Chinese, Danish and Romanian.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements iv

Preface v

1 Ancient Foes: China, Japan, and Asia until 1931 1

2 The Road TO War: Asia, 1931-37 24

3 Blitzkrieg: China, 1937 47

4 Defiance: China, 1938 67

5 Attrition: 1939 87

6 Stalemate: 1940 105

7 A Distant Thunder: Late 1940 until summer of 1941 124

8 Countdown: Summer and fall of 1941 144

9 Total War: December 7-8, 1941 161

Endnotes 179

Bibliography 209

Index 223

Editorial Reviews

"Harmsen’s highly compressed, readable, narrative of the cascade to conflict is highly recommended reading for contemporary world citizens."

Robert A. Kapp

"Beginning with the second chapter, Harmsen provides the reader with a readable and reliable narrative of this war before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor....he effortlessly shifts his focus from high politics and strategy in China and Japan to individual stories of foreign witnesses as well as ordinary Chinese and Japanese."

Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs

Storm Clouds Over the Pacific is an excellent primer about World War II in Asia prior to the involvement of the United States, . . . an excellent resource for understanding the relationship between China and Japan, past and present.“

New York Journal of Books - Benjamin Welton

"He shifts easily from cabinet rooms to battlefields, and gives us profiles of many persons, high and low, who played interesting roles in these events. A very good work about a very neglected subject."

The NYMAS Review

Peter Harmsen uses a reporter’s lean prose and sharp eye for detail to expertly tell the story of Japan’s war with China before Pearl Harbor. Among the highlights of this valuable book is Harmsen’s ability to effortlessly place Asian political and military developments in a global setting. The result is a masterful narrative account of the traumatic decade before Japan’s war in Asia merged into World War II.

Marc Gallicchio

Harmsen has managed to craft into a single accessible narrative the complex military history of the early years of the Chinese–Japanese conflict. The great strength of the book is the equal attention given to both Japanese and Chinese sides in terms of military strategies and outcomes on the battlefield.

Stephen R. MacKinnon

The author studies the origins of World War II in the Pacific through the vast war fought between China and Japan. It is a balanced book providing the perspectives of both sides and explains the motives and goals of each. The narrative is clear and engaging, and the level of detail is impressive.

Military History

"It is to be hoped that this book might provide a wake up call to modern readers about the dangers of military dictators. They cannot be trusted."

Bairdmaritime.com

Also gratifying, “Storm Clouds Over the Pacific” tackles via a smooth, easy-to-digest narrative the generations of animosities that drove the immensely destructive war in the Pacific, costing the lives of millions of people, soldiers and civilians alike."

Leatherneck

Other Vietnam histories provide dates and events or trace personal experience alone. Followers of Vietnam War history would do well to consult Autopsy of an Unwinnable War above most others: its ability to synthesize the extent of political, social, military, and personal experience for a clearer, bigger picture of why Vietnam was an impossible conflict all along makes it a winning, engrossing study that should be on the shelves of any definitive Vietnam War collection.

Midwest Book Review