Up until about 10 years ago I accepted that it was the atomic bombs that had forced the surrender of Japan in August 1945. It was about a decade ago that I first heard the argument advanced in this book, which is that the Soviet Union’s entry into the war had a bigger effect in bringing about Japan’s surrender.The book’s title comes from the notion that Stalin and Truman were racing each other over defeating Japan. Earlier in the Pacific War, eventual Soviet participation had been seen by the US...

The American retelling of World War II has the Japanese conceding defeat as a result of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th 1945, respectively. This is widely accepted in our education system. Specialist Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is part of a group of individuals who prefer to take a broader approach to the events that led to the culmination of the war. By examining the triangulation of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Japan, the author reasons that three...

In my unlamented youth, it was an article of faith among educated American adults that the American atom bombs, and the bombs alone, compelled Japan’s surrender at the end of the Second World War. Without the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as Harry Truman believed and as Paul Fussell insisted in a famous 1981 article ("Thank God for the Atom Bomb"), the United States would necessarily have invaded the Japanese home islands, losing at least a quarter of a million Americans in so doing...

Re-read it for the test and found it lacking in sophistication somehow. Much less exciting than first time reading it.

IN THIS BOOK, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes about the circumstances surrounding the end of WWII and the surrender of Japan. He examines the relationship between Stalin, Truman, and the Japanese government. By focusing on the political game that is played between the three, Hasegawa creates a clear picture showing that each respective party is trying to end the war for their own benefit and under the terms most acceptable to them. While revealing the details of these complex relationships, Hasegawa co...

A really interesting book that has received renewed interest on the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings. Much of what Hasegawa says will anger both the standard US view of the atomic bombs rule in ending the Pacific War and the revisionist school of historians. Starting in the 1960s many started arguing that the Japanese were only days from surrendering when Truman dropped the bombs out of some combo of veiled threats to the Soviets and racism. Ever since then the traditionalist

I started out enjoying the book but I couldn't finish it. It got bogged down in minutia - too many details of everyone who attend every meeting and ...

Hasegawa has written a great book, but there are enough caveats to his analyses, that I cannot award the book a full 5 stars. I think that Richard B. Frank's Downfall is more persuasive in his interpretations about the role of atomic weapons and Soviet entry, and I find Frank's thoughts (look for the H-diplo roundtable discussion online for Frank on Hasegawa) to usually be the ones I find most persuasive. Hasegawa has done some excellent research into this period, and his insights into the Sovie...

Hasegawa makes a good case. The trouble is the obvious errors he makes, errors that anybody who actually knows the subject shouldn't be making.For instance, page 18, he claims "Roosevelt immediately declared war". No, he didn't. Roosevelt couldn't declare war, though the declaration is commonly phrased that way: it wasn't a Presidential power; that power belonged to Congress. And it wasn't "immediate": it was the following day. (The same day Japan did, coincidentally; the notorious Fourteen-Part...

A true three-sided evaluation of the last weeks of the Pacific War. Hasegawa is uniquely prepared for this study: He is a Japanese-born, US-based professor of Russian history. Especially the Japanese and Russian side are much underresearched in the West, and here the book shines in its depiction of Stalin's crafty power politics for the Far East and the struggle of the Japanese peace party and war party within the government. Sadly, its assessment of US intentions - that the United States were e...

This is a phenomenally well-researched book by the only historian to tackle the subject of the end of WWII who could read the three key languages, English, Russian, and Japanese. The result of his digging through the three nations' archives and the fact that he was writing in 2005 after many more documents of the era were declassified make for a more complete view of all the negotiations, plotting, and fighting that brought about the end of the war. And it is not revisionism to say that the atom...

Great book. Many characters & events — sometimes getting bogged down in detail. The second half really speeds up. Informative and enlightening, this is a great book that you can spend a week on and learn a whole ton about U.S., Soviet, and Japanese foreign policy during (and mostly around the end of) World War II. My main criticism is that it fails to address the racism & ideology present within (FDR's and) Truman's administration's decision making esp. concerning Japan's unconditional surrender...

A gripping account of the last few months of the Second World War, almost exclusively from a diplomatic point of view. If you're looking for details on the battles or eyewitness accounts from ground-level you won't find them here, this is a book about relations between the highest officials of the US, Japan and the Soviet Union.

As the war in the Pacific is going on, the Soviet Union and the US are working towards an end to the war. Although Japan is trying to work with the Soviets towards the same end. Unfortunately, for those who have studied history, about 98% of this is already known...and it’s a VERY DRY read. The other 2% almost makes it worth it.

A detailed reevaluation of the end of the Pacific War. Hasegawa uses old sources and new ones found in Japan and Moscow to argue that the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary for the capitulation of Imperial Japan. The entry in to the war by the Soviets was far more important.

This was a intriguing look into an aspect of WWII that is rarely touched upon. It thoroughly punctures the myth that the bombs ended the war and explores the complex and often petty decisions that led to the war continuing as long as it did. A great read and a necessary exploration in a greater view of the war.

A thoroughly researched, thoughtful study that shatters the American-held myth that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were decisive in Japan's unconditional surrender.

This book has a lot of content and sometimes—at least for me—too much content, but overall it is expertly researched and argued.

In the American mind, the end of the Pacific War is clear. Sure, there might be debates on the morality of dropping the bomb, but the standard narrative is that the bomb made the final push to convince Japan to surrender and saved both American and Japanese lives. Hasegawa Tsuyoshi brings in Soviet and Japanese primary sources to offer an alternative view: The U.S. and U.S.S.R were, for a few reasons in an unannounced race to push Japan to surrender on their own terms.To anyone who has some expe...

I had not heard of this book until the conclusion was including in a "Taking Sides" book assigned for one of my university classes. I added to my reading list for a research paper on the decision to use the atomic bomb.Published in 2005, "Racing The Enemy" cites Richard Frank's Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire from 1999 and is in turn cited by Max Hastings' Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 from 2008. Hasegawa takes a view on the end of the war against Japan contrary to...

Very well argued example of revisionist (to my mind, although Hasegawa does criticize some elements of the older revisionist position) but very heavy on emphasizing Soviet entry into the war as the key element in the decision by Japan to surrender.Even if I had not read other works, the chapter on "Potsdam: the Turning Point" is heavily conclusionary. Cf. especially "Racing the Enemy: A Critical Look" by Michael Kort, The Historical Society, Boston U, Vol. Vii, No. 3.I was going to transcribe de...

"In this groundbreaking book, Hasegawa argues that the atomic bombs were not as decisive in bringing about Japan's unconditional surrender as Soviet entry into the Pacific war. Few have so thoroughly documented the complex evasions and Machiavellinism of Japanese, Russian, and, especially, American leaders in the process of war termination" - Herbert P. Bix, Pulitzer Prize-winning author I've learnt that the Americans were desperate to use and to justify the use of the uranium bombs against Japa...

An influential book looking at the US, Soviet, and Japanese actions in the final days of World War II. Hasegawa shows that within both the US and the Japanese commands, there were deep divisions about how the end of the war should be handled. Hasegawa further argues that the Soviet declaration of war against Japan, and subsequent invasion of Manchuria, was more influential on the eventual Japanese decision for unconditional surrender than were the use of the atomic bombs. An influential book loo...

Read this for a grad class and loved it! Wonderful, if insanely dense, play-by-play of US-USSR-Japanese relations regarding the Pacific War, culminating in the dropping of the atomic bomb and the Japanese surrender. Anyone who gives a hoot about history has probably encountered the historiography/debate surrounding the use of the atomic bomb, but few sources, at least in my own experience, come at it from such a international perspective. All three nations are examined in detail, and it truly re...

This is a very detailed book and I really enjoyed it. It mainly covers the last few months of WW2 in the Pacific although it goes back to the Yalta Conference.The incredible twists and turns in Imperial Japan leading up to the surrender are very well laid out.Stalin's focus on grabbing everything he could before the war was "officially" over lead him to continue to invade islands after the official surrender.The author also discusses the impact of the 2 atomic/nuclear bombs on Japanese perceptio...

A highly detailed study of the two races toward the end of WW II in the Pacific: between the US and Russia to maximize their national interests, and between the war and peace factions in Japan. No heroes; no villains. There is plenty here to evaluate the morality and desirability of the atomic bombings.

referenced herehttp://www.counterpunch.org/young0806...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ide...

Very educational. I learned a lot.

Fantastic! Read it if you're a fan of nonfiction or of World War II books.