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The Rising Sun
- The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 41 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's summary
This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."
In weaving together the historical facts and human drama leading up to and culminating in the war in the Pacific, Toland crafts a riveting and unbiased narrative history.
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In his critically acclaimed Armageddon, Hastings detailed the last twelve months of the struggle for Germany. Here, in what can be considered a companion volume, he covers the horrific story of the war against Japan. By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained to be seen. The ensuing drama–that ended in Japan’s utter devastation–was acted out across the vast stage of Asia.
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A superb study by one of the world's finest histor
- By Easton Reader on 12-22-16
By: Max Hastings
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Roosevelt's Centurions
- FDR and the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II
- By: Joseph E. Persico
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 24 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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All American presidents are commanders in chief by law. Few perform as such in practice. In Roosevelt’s Centurions, distinguished historian Joseph E. Persico reveals how, during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt seized the levers of wartime power like no president since Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Declaring himself "Dr. Win-the-War", FDR assumed the role of strategist in chief, and, though surrounded by star-studded generals and admirals, he made clear who was running the war. FDR was a hands-on war leader, involving himself in everything from choosing bomber targets to planning naval convoys to the design of landing craft.
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Superficial description of World War II
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-23-13
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The Battle of Britain
- Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 26 hrs and 40 mins
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The Battle of Britain paints a stirring picture of an extraordinary summer when the fate of the world hung by a thread. Historian James Holland has now written the definitive account of those months based on extensive new research from around the world, including thousands of new interviews with people on both sides of the battle.
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The battle up to The Battle of Britain
- By Chiefkent on 11-07-17
By: James Holland
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Undefeated
- America's Heroic Fight for Bataan and Corregidor
- By: Bill Sloan
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
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Abandoned by their government, the men and women of the American garrison struggled against impossible military odds, rampant disease, and slow starvation to delay inevitable surrender by the largest American military force ever. Rather than picturing these defenders as little more than helpless victims of an overwhelmingly powerful and sadistic enemy-as most previous books about the Philippines campaign have done- Undefeated credits American troops with the unexcelled heroism and indomitable spirit they displayed under the worst imaginable conditions.
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Mesmerizing
- By Amazon Customer on 03-30-17
By: Bill Sloan
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Sea of Thunder
- By: Evan Thomas
- Narrated by: George Wilson
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The book focuses on four naval commanders, two American, two Japanese, whose lives collided at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 - a clash involving more ships (almost 300), more men (nearly 200,000) and covering a larger area (more than 100 thousand square miles, roughly the size of the British Isles) than any naval battle in recorded history.
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Good
- By Hika on 12-28-09
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A Higher Form of Killing
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- By: Diana Preston
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In six weeks during April and May 1915, as World War I escalated, Germany forever altered the way war would be fought. On April 22, at Ypres, German canisters spewed poison gas at French and Canadian soldiers in their trenches; on May 7, the German submarine U-20, without warning, torpedoed the passenger liner Lusitania, killing 1,198 civilians; and on May 31, a German Zeppelin began the first aerial bombardment of London and its inhabitants.
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Very Informative
- By Anonymous User on 05-24-23
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Alone
- Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory
- By: Michael Korda
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
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An epic of remarkable originality, Alone captures the heroism of World War II as movingly as any book in recent memory. Bringing to vivid life the world leaders, generals, and ordinary citizens who fought on both sides of the war, Michael Korda, the best-selling author of Clouds of Glory, chronicles the outbreak of hostilities, recalling as a prescient young boy the enveloping tension that defined pre-Blitz London, and then as a military historian the great events that would alter the course of the 20th century.
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Exceptional
- By Jean on 11-11-17
By: Michael Korda
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D-Days in the Pacific
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Gary Dikeos
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
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Although most people associate the term D-day with the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, it is military code for the beginning of any offensive operation. In the Pacific theater during World War II there were more than one hundred D-days. The largest - and last - was the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, which brought together the biggest invasion fleet ever assembled, far larger than that engaged in the Normandy invasion. D-Days in the Pacific tells the epic story of the campaign waged by American forces to win back the Pacific islands from Japan.
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Terrific one volume history of the Pacific war.
- By Bill on 12-01-12
By: Donald L. Miller
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The Story of World War II
- By: Donald L. Miller, Henry Steele Commager
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 24 hrs and 52 mins
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Drawing on previously unpublished eyewitness accounts, prizewinning historian Donald L. Miller has written what critics are calling one of the most powerful accounts of warfare ever published. Here are the horror and heroism of World War II in the words of the men who fought it, the journalists who covered it, and the civilians who were caught in its fury. Miller gives us an up-close, deeply personal view of a war that was more savagely fought - and whose outcome was in greater doubt - than one might imagine. This is the war that Americans on the home front would have read about had they had access to previously censored testimony.
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INCREDIBLE! WELL-RESEARCHED, COMPLETE & UNBIASED!
- By The Louligan on 07-15-14
By: Donald L. Miller, and others
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What listeners say about The Rising Sun
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mike From Mesa
- 07-30-15
A political as well as military history
I have read a great many books concerning World War II involving both the European as well as Pacific theaters of war and was not very interested in reading another book centered on the Pacific theater. What drew me to the decision to buy this book is that it offered what was rare in the other books I read, the political background of the Japanese involvement in the war.
The Pacific Theater of the war is a sort of neglected step-child of the history books. While there are many very fine books concerning the war in the Pacific, the number is much smaller than those books on the European Theater and those books that do exist mostly concentrate on the battles and the difficulty in fighting a war on such a broad front. What has almost always been missing is the political background explaining how Japan found itself being inexorably drawn into a war with the US when many of its political and military leaders believed Japan could not win such a war, Yamamoto perhaps foremost among them.
I have always believed that the reason for the lack of extensive material covering the Japanese decisions leading to the war was the general lack of familiarity among most readers, myself included, concerning how the Japanese political system worked and the daunting task facing a writer in explaining the intricate and unfamiliar process to the general reader. However Mr Toland, who has written much about World War II, has successfully provided the political background very well in this book. This was not a new task as this book is quite old (first published in 1970) but nonetheless feels fresh and new. While some of the material may have been superseded by more recent scholarship this book is still very worthwhile for anyone interested not only in how the war progressed, but in why the Japanese government took the decisions it did.
The only problem I found with this book is that some of the Japanese names are very similar and it is easy in the Audible version of this book to mistake one for another. One example is mistaking Tojo for Togo and thus failing to grasp the competing war and peace factions in the government.
Tom Weiner does an excellent job in narrating this book and I found it to be both easy to listen to and well worth the time. I recommend this book for those interested in knowing the background of the war, but for those interested only in the tactical and strategic decisions and the battles, there are probably better books about the war in the Pacific.
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- Philip
- 09-24-14
First rate history
Wow. You come away from this book feeling like you actually understand what would posses the Japanese to launch into a war they knew that they would lose if it went on very long and why they fought so hard right to the end. If all history books were this good why would you ever read fiction?
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- Gillian
- 12-21-17
As Exasperating As It Is Tragic
I'm a military history buff with a focus on Vietnam and World War II, so when I finished Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, I was horrified, conflicted, and drawn back to revisit books on Japan, the Pacific War, the major players of the Pacific theater. Naturally that led me back to The Rising Sun.
It's a work that's awesome in its scope, painstaking in military, political, even social detail. And as it went on, I became more and more, exasperated is a kind word for it.
It fully explains the Japanese rationale for entering the war, but after the good, there's the tragic. The endlessly tragic. There's the defeat after defeat, and that just made the Japanese entrench themselves more in their dogma and in their drive to take ten Americans for everyone one man sacrificed. Even after horrific and atrocious bombings of Japanese cities (which are a tad rationalized by the fact that Japanese industry wasn't centered around a military complex as in Germany but was instead centered in home-factories), even after the destruction and devastation of two, TWO! atomic bombs, what did they do? They had a failed coup to continue the war, they offered up Twenty Million Suicides to take out as many Americans on the way out as possible, and after surrender, they had the executions of many POWs.
It was so aggravating to re listen to, but if you're in the mood for a truly brilliantly researched work, dive right in. Just don't expect to come out smelling like a rose...
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- Scott
- 08-10-14
The pacific war from inside the Japanese empire
Any additional comments?
Comprehensive and compelling history of the war in the pacific from the Japanese empire point of view. This is gripping military as well as political history which seeks to shed light on the motivations of Japanese society and the military clique which led Japan into and through its disastrous policies of aggressive expansionism. It is reminiscent of Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and I would say is a must read for those with an interest in WWII. Toland intersperses the narrative with many first person accounts as well as analysis. Pulls no punches while at the same time offers a nuanced take of events. My only criticism is that the primary focus here is the pacific war against the United States with far lesser detail given to the India, Burma, and China. Nevertheless, I found this a monumental work of history. The narration is very capable and keeps things moving along.
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35 people found this helpful
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- Matt
- 09-02-14
Phenomenal account
Would you listen to The Rising Sun again? Why?
No. It was long, and detailed. Something that I'll remember, but not want to revisit.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Surprisingly, I did. I was moved at the end of the book by the Emperor in the final days of the war.
Any additional comments?
This is a fantastic account of WWII Japan. Spanning the time period from, roughly, the Marco-Polo bridge incident to the occupation of Japan, the narrative is delivered from the Japanese perspective. The book gives accounts, biography and personal antidotes about the major players of Japan in this time period - the Emperor, the Prime Minister, Ambassadors, generals, etc - but is also does the same for common soldiers, civilians, seamen and pilots. The book explores the human, cultural, economic and religious cost of the war and does a good job of explaining thoughts, concepts and motivations that were and are wholly foreign to the western belligerents.
This book is a great read for anyone interested in the eastern pacific as the events relayed in this book cast a long shadow over the future of pacific Asia.
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30 people found this helpful
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- Reader
- 05-11-15
Too sympathetic to the Japanese Empire.
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Yes, but with caveats. This book engages in commentary on the relative blame for war with the US while glossing over Japanese duplicity. The author seems astounded that the US would be skeptical of Japanese peace overtures prior to Pearl Harbor, regardless of the Japanese well-documented dishonorable record in world affairs. After the Japanese behavior with the Russians first, and then with the Chinese, prior to 1941, it seems like taking the Japanese at face value would be the extreme in naivete.
The author also focuses on the suffering of the Japanese people from fire bombing and later the atom bomb while glossing over events like the rape of Nanjing and the rape of Manila, or even more egregiously totally ignoring events like the response to the Doolittle Raid where they murdered 250,000 Chinese, the Bataan Death March and biological and chemical warfare experiments carried out on Chinese and allied prisoners in a way which people who know about Mengele would find familiar.
Would you recommend The Rising Sun to your friends? Why or why not?
The book was well-researched, regardless of my comments above, and very interesting to see a little-known Japanese perspective. The author swallows the "honorable Japanese" bait, hook, line, and sinker, while disregarding the clear, historical evidence to the contrary.
Any additional comments?
"Honor" to the Japanese did not mean honor in the western sense, but rather "face" in the Asiatic sense. "Face" has far more to do with the appearance and social standing of a person than it does with "doing the right thing" in the European, Judeo-Christian concept of honor. This is a point which I believe the author would do well to learn.
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29 people found this helpful
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- Cassandra
- 09-07-14
Long, but never boring
If you could sum up The Rising Sun in three words, what would they be?
Compelling, informative, objective
What did you like best about this story?
It was told from the perspective of many individuals from many sides.
Any additional comments?
Had I been reading this book (rather than listening to it), no doubt I would have skimmed over much of the battle passages. As I listened, I never felt the urge to skip or fast forward, for the story as told from many different perspectives was so compelling and offered so much insight into the Japanese culture.
The narration, by John Weiner, was excellent. The book is 42 hours long and I never tired of his voice. He was so convincing that it felt as if he were the author.
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- Walter Pearson
- 08-28-14
Surprising History
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. This book gives a fascinating insight to the War in the Pacific from the Japanese perspective.
What other book might you compare The Rising Sun to and why?
Perhaps "Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership That Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe".
Which character – as performed by Tom Weiner – was your favorite?
None.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No this is a long detailed history and requires one to concentrate to get most out of it.
Any additional comments?
This is a great history because it does show just how divided Japan was over war in the Pacific. It also shows the nuances of the social changes that were driving Japan prior to 1939.
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- The Louligan
- 08-08-14
AN AMAZING & COMPLETE ACCOUNT!
Great book for World War II fans. It is very complete and unbiased with lots of little known facts. Much of the book is from the points of view of the Japanese - military, civilians, even the Emperor. Hirohito comes off as less of a blundering idiot here than a royalist burdened with the weight of hundreds of years of history, honor, and "face". I see now how impotent he was at the hands of his Shogun military advisors who wanted to fight until death, to the detriment of innocent civilians. I better understand the concept of seppuku or hara-kiri - an act that made absolutely no sense to me before, but my people were robbed of the Asians intense sense of country and honor to one's family and heritage.
As a black American, I was a bit disappointed that the only mention of our military men was when some inconsequential Japanese woman who had never seen a black person before was horrified by the sight of the "monsters", fainted, and was told later that her life had been saved by those black G.I.'s. But since most of our heroic battles were fought in the German theater against the Nazis, I will give John Toland a pass this time and still rate this amazing account a full 5-stars. Narrator Tom Weiner does a masterful job with a book that gets a bit dry at some points with its blow-by-blow reading of boring documents and military communiqueés. Well worth 40 hours of your life!
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- DJM
- 12-18-14
A Different Perspective, Not a Justification
I found this historical account truly fascinating. As I listened to the history I realized that I was as ignorant about the culture of Japan as any of the players in the West at that time. I have read extensively about WWII from a western and European perspective but I really hadn't spent much time considering the Japanese. Such people as Tojo and Yamamoto were mostly one dimensional for me. Toland does an excellent job of pulling back the curtain and giving us a view of what was happening in the Pacific. He also offered some new perspectives on such things as the Bataan Death March. He does not seek to justify what happened but I feel that I have a better understanding of why it happened the way that it did.
There are some omissions. Korea is barely mentioned and there is no discussion of the germ warfare experiments that took place in China. If History and WWII is an area if interest I'd definitely recommend this book. Much like Anthony Beevor, Toland does an excellent job moving from the macro to the micro so you have a real sense of what it was like to be in the trenches on the pacific Islands or flying a torpedo plane at Pearl Harbor.
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