The most distinguished series in military history, published in the US for the first time. Each is volume written by a leading authority in the field and edited by John Keegan, the world's preeminent military historian. In this heavily illustrated and authoritative account of World War II in the Far East and the Pacific, critically acclaimed historian H. P. Wilmott describes the most dramatic actions ever played out in military history.

Leading historian of the war in the Far East, P.H. Willmott, provides a concise, readable account of the conflict. The book is fully illustrated throughout and incorporates computer generated graphics that bring the battlefields to life.

"The effects of World War II were felt throughout Europe and beyond into Russia and as far as Africa. Whether Allied, Axis, or caught between the two, no one on the Continent escaped the war unscathed. A historian and veteran of the conflict, Charles Messenger illuminates the totality of war in Europe, capturing clearly the physical destruction, the mobilization of populations, and the changing political boundaries in each stage of the conflict."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Second World War's Pacific conflict was one of the most complex in history. It embrioled peoples from opposite sides of the globe; it was fought in China, across the expanses of the Pacific, and in the jungles of Southeast Asia; and it was devastating in its consequences for civilians and servicemen alike. It saw the first use of atomic weapons, hastened the end of the Western empires in Asia, and marked America's rise to the position of the most powerful nation in the world. Christopher Thorne, whose previous studies of the war in the Pacific have become landmarks in the field, here weaves together both the entire network of international relations surrounding the war and the impact the war had on all the societies involved--Indian as well as American; Australian and New Zealand as well as Japanese; Korean, Chinese, and Southeast Asian as well as British, French, and Dutch. The Issue of War draws on material gathered over many years in the Far East, Western Europe, and the U.S.--material including wartime films, broadcasts, and newspapers,as well as countless private and offical papers. Representing a synthesis of military, diplomatic, economic, intellectual, and social history, it not only places the war in the context of developments before 1941, but illuminates various patterns that cut across the familiar distinctions between Asia and the West or between Japan and the Allies. About the Author: Christopher Thorne, a Fellow of the British Academy, is the author of Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941-1945. In 1979 he became the first non-American to win the Bancroft Prize for American history.