Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness

by Craig Nelson

Overview

“A valuable reexamination” (Booklist, starred review) of the event that changed twentieth-century America—Pearl Harbor—based on years of research and new information uncovered by a New York Times bestselling author.

The America we live in today was born, not on July 4, 1776, but on December 7, 1941, when an armada of 354 Japanese warplanes supported by aircraft carriers, destroyers, and midget submarines suddenly and savagely attacked the United States, killing 2,403 men—and forced America’s entry into World War II. Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness follows the sailors, soldiers, pilots, diplomats, admirals, generals, emperor, and president as they engineer, fight, and react to this stunningly dramatic moment in world history.

Beginning in 1914, bestselling author Craig Nelson maps the road to war, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, attended the laying of the keel of the USS Arizona at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Writing with vivid intimacy, Nelson traces Japan’s leaders as they lurch into ultranationalist fascism, which culminates in their scheme to terrify America with one of the boldest attacks ever waged. Within seconds, the country would never be the same.

Backed by a research team’s five years of work, as well as Nelson’s thorough re-examination of the original evidence assembled by federal investigators, this page-turning and definitive work “weaves archival research, interviews, and personal experiences from both sides into a blow-by-blow narrative of destruction liberally sprinkled with individual heroism, bizarre escapes, and equally bizarre tragedies” (Kirkus Reviews). Nelson delivers all the terror, chaos, violence, tragedy, and heroism of the attack in stunning detail, and offers surprising conclusions about the tragedy’s unforeseen and resonant consequences that linger even today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451660500
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	08/01/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	414,916
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Craig Nelson is the author of Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness and the New York Times bestseller, Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon, as well as several previous books, including The Age of Radiance (a PEN Award Finalist chosen as one of the year’s best books by NBC News, the American Institute of Physics, Kirkus Reviews, and FlavorWire), The First Heroes, Thomas Paine (winner of the Henry Adams Prize), and Let’s Get Lost (shortlisted for W.H. Smith’s Book of the Year). His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, National Geographic, The New England Review, Popular Science, Reader’s Digest, and a host of other publications.

Table of Contents

Preface: Dreadnoughts and Holystones 1

Part I The Roads to War

Chapter 1 Conceiving the Inconceivable 21

Chapter 2 A Sinister Wind 67

Chapter 3 Autumn 1941 96

Chapter 4 November 128

Chapter 5 December 6 173

Part II Strike!

Chapter 6 From the Air 213

Chapter 7 Pearl Harbor 246

Chapter 8 Describing the Indescribable 292

Chapter 9 Infamy 334

Chapter 10 Resurrection 354

Part III Victory

Chapter 11 Vengeance 367

Chapter 12 Triumph 392

Chapter 13 Legacy 413

Appendix 1 Judgment and Controversy 437

Appendix 2 The Medal of Honor 455

Acknowledgments 463

Notes 465

Sources 483

Index 499

Editorial Reviews

In this brilliant mix of history and emotion, Craig Nelson has managed to combine grueling research with masterful reporting in order to capture the long and the short, the overview and the detail, of that infamous day in a paradisal land of orchids and jacaranda. It has taken seventy-five years, but now, finally, the Pearl Harbor book has been written.”
—Jim deFilippi, author of Mules of Monte Cassino and Murka

"Craig Nelson has completely retold the epic story of Pearl Harbor. Using his skills as a reporter and a literary stylist, he not only deftly paints the fleeting image—an enemy pilot waving as he flies by, a cup of coffee trembling on a table while outside a war commences—but a world roiled in titanic struggle. His gifts as storyteller, his empathy and scope, will appeal to fans of Walter Lord’s Day of Infamy or Cornelius Ryan’s A Bridge Too Far, and, in surprise, the inquiry of Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower. This book has a thousand poignant and unforgettable moments. You’ll read Pearl Harbor and want to pass it to a friend."
—Doug Stanton, New York Times best-selling author of Horse Soldiers and In Harm's Way

“Craig Nelson has taught me there's a lot to learn about an infamous day and it's a joy reading his deeply-researched and well-written account.”
—James Bradley, bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers, Flyboys, and The China Mirage

"Bookshelves groan with accounts of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath, but readers will not regret this thick new contribution to the literature. . . . Nelson weaves archival research, interviews, and personal experiences from both sides into a blow-by-blow narrative of destruction liberally sprinkled with individual heroism, bizarre escapes, and equally bizarre tragedies."
—Kirkus Reviews

“A valuable reexamination of the causes, the attack, and the aftermath of that seminal event [at Pearl Harbor] ... Superbly done and instructive... Informative and poignant. ... This is a worthy addition to the already voluminous studies of a history-changing event.”
—Booklist (starred review)

"Nelson brings his formidable narrative talents to bear on this well-known history as he comprehensively contextualizes and covers the battle....To differentiate his work from the many previous volumes on this event, Nelson highlights the individual experiences of soldiers at the battle’s front and beyond. Nelson’s well written history of Pearl Harbor will be enjoyed by the general reader and appropriately highlights the battle’s historical significance."
—Publishers Weekly

"As close to a complete history as possible of the events leading up to the December 1941 bombing...This comprehensive account doesn’t shy away from the horrors of war, successfully providing an even-handed chronicle of the events that led up to Pearl Harbor.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

"Undoubtedly, we will read many stories about Pearl Harbor in the coming months, but this book is an invaluable resource for those who want to know the whole story."
—Bookreporter

“[An] important new piece of Pearl Harbor scholarship... A comprehensive, engaging new history of the attack that thrust the United States into World War II.”
—Shelf Awareness

“A superb and instructive reexamination of the causes, the attack, and the aftermath of Pearl Harbor...backed by a deep look into prewar developments in Japan.”
—Booklist

From the Publisher

08/29/2016
To mark the 75th anniversary of the battle that committed the U.S. to WWII and led directly to war with Japan, Nelson (The Age of Radiance) brings his formidable narrative talents to bear on this well-known history as he comprehensively contextualizes and covers the battle. The book opens with a focus on events leading up to the war; readers unfamiliar with the history will find the chaos and violence that characterized Japanese internal politics fascinating. The battle narration seamlessly moves back and forth from the strategic level to the grim fighting and surviving in the harbor. The book is both well researched and well balanced, with Nelson giving equal weight to the Japanese and American perspectives. To differentiate his work from the many previous volumes on this event, Nelson highlights the individual experiences of soldiers at the battle’s front and beyond. He also reconsiders the battle’s place in both Japanese and American culture and history, positing that this event marks the beginning of modern American history (a thesis that may be valid but here remains underdeveloped). Nelson’s well written history of Pearl Harbor will be enjoyed by the general reader and appropriately highlights the battle’s historical significance. Agent: Stuart Krichevsky, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 09/15/2016
Nelson (Rocket Men) combines first-person accounts with evidence from more than 60 volumes of federal reports to tell the story of the attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor from the point of view of both American and Japanese forces. Based on over five years of research by Nelson, this exhaustive account weaves time lines from Tokyo, Washington, DC, and the Hawaiian island of Oahu to present as close to a complete history as possible of the events leading up to the December 1941 bombing. Roughly half of the book focuses on the planning, diplomacy, spying, and miscommunications that happened in the months and days leading up to the attack. While Nelson doesn't demonize Japanese actions, he does present the savagery of war, including the Japanese aggression in China, in graphic detail. Later chapters outline the response from the U.S. military, including a small-scale raid on Tokyo in April 1942, and the overall effects of World War II on the American psyche. VERDICT This comprehensive account doesn't shy away from the horrors of war, successfully providing an even-handed chronicle of the events that led up to Pearl Harbor. [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/16.]—John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Library Journal

2016-07-19
Bookshelves groan with accounts of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath, but readers will not regret this thick new contribution to the literature.Journalist and historian Nelson (The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era, 2014, etc.) emphasizes that understanding Japanese politics would not have helped the United States forestall the attack because the Japanese government was out of control. “One simple explanation for Pearl Harbor…is the great difficulty American leaders had in crafting an effective defense strategy against an enemy that had lost its mind,” he writes. The main problem with the Japanese command was that no one was in charge. Civilian leaders were subservient to the military. The army and navy never cooperated, but, most disastrously, everyone was at the mercy of a wackily patriotic movement among midlevel officers who murdered any superior regarded as insufficiently devoted to their nation’s destiny. Popular opinion considered the practice technically illegal but admirable, similar to how Americans regard the Boston Tea Party. With lively prose and many astute insights, Nelson chronicles the Japanese-American political jockeying before moving on to the action, where he does not disappoint. Battle descriptions are socially acceptable historical porn, so readers’ eyes will be glued to the page as Nelson weaves archival research, interviews, and personal experiences from both sides into a blow-by-blow narrative of destruction liberally sprinkled with individual heroism, bizarre escapes, and equally bizarre tragedies. Oddly, the author reserves the extensive investigation and scapegoating for the appendix, spending perhaps too many pages on the Doolittle Raid and a workmanlike account of the Pacific War. Although Gordon Prange’s At Dawn We Slept (1981) is showing its age, it remains the best source on the run-up to the attack. Nelson covers this admirably but comes into his own when the fireworks begin.

Kirkus Reviews