The Desperate Diplomat: Saburo Kurusu's Memoir of the Weeks Before Pearl Harbor
| PUBLISHER | University of Missouri Press (03/29/2016) |
| PRODUCT TYPE | Hardcover (Hardcover) |
Description
On December 7, 1941, the course of U.S. history changed forever with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Three weeks prior, Japanese Special Envoy to the United States Saburo Kurusu visited Washington in an attempt to further peace talks between Japan and America and spare his country the loss he knew would occur if a war began. But as he reported, "Working for peace is not as simple as starting a war." For more than seventy years, many have unfairly viewed Kurusu and his visit as part of the Pearl Harbor plot. Editors J. Garry Clifford and Masako R. Okura seek to dispel this myth with their edition of Kurusu's memoir, The Desperate Diplomat.Kurusu published his personal memoir in 1952, in Japanese, describing his efforts to prevent war between the two nations, his total lack of knowledge regarding the Pearl Harbor attack, and what "might have been" had he been successful in his endeavor for peace, while offering an exclusive perspective on the Japanese reaction to the attack. However, the information contained in his memoir was unavailable to most of the world, save those fluent in Japanese, because it had never been published in another language. With the discovery of Kurusu's own English memoir, his story can finally be told to a wider audience.Clifford and Okura have used both the Japanese and English memoirs and added an introduction and annotations to Kurusu's story, making The Desperate Diplomat an essential look at an event that remains controversial in the history of both nations. Anyone who takes interest in the history of Pearl Harbor cannot afford to omit this previously unavailable information from their library.
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Product Format
Product Details
ISBN-13:
9780826220370
ISBN-10:
0826220371
Binding:
Hardback or Cased Book (Sewn)
Content Language:
English
More Product Details
Page Count:
176
Carton Quantity:
27
Product Dimensions:
6.40 x 0.80 x 9.30 inches
Weight:
0.90 pound(s)
Feature Codes:
Bibliography,
Index,
Price on Product,
Illustrated
Country of Origin:
US
Subject Information
BISAC Categories
Biography & Autobiography | Political
Biography & Autobiography | International Relations - Diplomacy
Biography & Autobiography | Wars & Conflicts - World War II - General
Grade Level:
College Freshman
- 5th Grade
Dewey Decimal:
B
Library of Congress Control Number:
2015940587
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
publisher marketing
On December 7, 1941, the course of U.S. history changed forever with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Three weeks prior, Japanese Special Envoy to the United States Saburo Kurusu visited Washington in an attempt to further peace talks between Japan and America and spare his country the loss he knew would occur if a war began. But as he reported, "Working for peace is not as simple as starting a war." For more than seventy years, many have unfairly viewed Kurusu and his visit as part of the Pearl Harbor plot. Editors J. Garry Clifford and Masako R. Okura seek to dispel this myth with their edition of Kurusu's memoir, The Desperate Diplomat.Kurusu published his personal memoir in 1952, in Japanese, describing his efforts to prevent war between the two nations, his total lack of knowledge regarding the Pearl Harbor attack, and what "might have been" had he been successful in his endeavor for peace, while offering an exclusive perspective on the Japanese reaction to the attack. However, the information contained in his memoir was unavailable to most of the world, save those fluent in Japanese, because it had never been published in another language. With the discovery of Kurusu's own English memoir, his story can finally be told to a wider audience.Clifford and Okura have used both the Japanese and English memoirs and added an introduction and annotations to Kurusu's story, making The Desperate Diplomat an essential look at an event that remains controversial in the history of both nations. Anyone who takes interest in the history of Pearl Harbor cannot afford to omit this previously unavailable information from their library.
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Editor:
Clifford, J. Garry
J. Garry Clifford teaches at the University of Connecticut, where he is a professor of political science and director of its graduate program. Born in Massachusetts, he earned his B.A. from Williams College (1964) and his Ph.D. in history from Indiana University (1969). He has also taught at the University of Tennessee and Dartmouth College and has participated in two National Endowment for the Humanities seminars for high school teachers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. For his book The Citizen Soldiers (1972), he won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians. With Norman Cousins, he has edited Memoirs of a Man: Grenville Clark (1975), and with Samuel R. Spencer, Jr., he has written The First Peacetime Draft (1986). He also co-authored America Ascendant (with Thomas G. Paterson, 1995). With Theodore A. Wilson, he edited and contributed to Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals: Essays in Honor of Robert H. Ferrell (2007). Garry's chapters have appeared in Gordon Martel, ed., American Foreign Relations Reconsidered (1994), Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (1991 and 2004), Arnold A. Offner and Theodore A. Wilson, eds., Victory in Europe, 1945 (2000), and in the Journal of American History, Review of Politics, Mid-America, American Neptune, and Diplomatic History. Garry has served on the editorial board of Diplomatic History as well as on the editorial board of the Modern War Series of the University Press of Kansas. He is currently writing a book on FDR and American intervention in World War II.
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Your Price
$38.61