Before Pearl Harbor: Making the Pacific War by Robert Ditterich traces the subtle and peculiarly Japanese underpinnings of the war in the Pacific and challenges the "good war" tenets so prevalent in today's historical analysis. Through scrupulous research and traditional narrative, Ditterich's impeccable examination probes Western interpretations of the causes the war and offers a complex mix of cultural, historical, and geopolitical factors for the war that other viewpoints have missed.
Ditterich masterfully negotiates the multifaceted chains of cause and effect that led to war in Asia, tracking Japan's development as an industrial power and the Western impulses that played a major role in the creation of a militarist Japan. Told with a breadth of understanding rare in historical nonfiction, Before Pearl Harbor: Making the Pacific War challenges old assumptions and offers new insights into our not so distant past.