Author Description

Product Description With an introduction read by Max Hastings. A companion volume to his bestselling Armageddon, Max Hastings' account of the battle for Japan is a masterful military history. Featuring the most remarkable cast of commanders the world has ever seen, the dramatic battle for Japan of 1944-45 was acted out across the vast stage of Asia: Imphal and Kohima, Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Soviet assault on Manchuria. In this gripping narrative, Max Hastings weaves together the complex strands of an epic war, exploring the military tactics behind some of the most triumphant and most horrific scenes of the 20th century. The result is a masterpiece that balances the story of command decisions, rivalries, and follies with the experiences of soldiers, sailors, and airmen of all sides as only Max Hastings can. Review “[A] masterly account of the climax of the conflict against Japan.... Hastings is a military historian in the grand tradition.” —The New York Times Book Review“Compelling.... To the broad sweep of military events Hastings adds myriad human stories... and he does not hesitate to offer his own keen analysis along the way.” —The Wall Street Journal“Through the imaginative power of his writing, we get an inkling... of what it must have been like to slog one's way up a cliff at Iwo Jima, or be firebombed in Tokyo.” —The New York Review of Books“A triumph.... The key to the book's success lies not in its accessibility, nor in its vivid portraits of the key figures in the drama—although it has both—but in something else entirely: the author's supremely confident ambition.” —The Sunday Times (London)"Hastings has another winner.... This book is first-rate popular history, stiffened with a strongly stated point of view... A close-up and personal look at war as it affected real people, and how it felt to them at the time." —Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch"Explosive, argumentative, intensely researched.... Demands to be read. A book of stunning disclosures." —Tom Mackin, Sunday Star-Ledger"[A] masterful interpretive narrative.... Hastings is both comprehensive and finely acute." —Booklist "Spectacular... Searingly powerful. Hastings makes important points about the war in the East that have been all too rarely heard." —Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Telegraph "Extraordinary... Anyone who believes that we're all living through a uniquely troubled time should read this... book." —Georgie Rose, The Sunday Herald"This is a book not only for military history buffs but for anyone who wants to understand what happened in half the world during one of the bloodiest periods of the blood-soaked 20th century." —The Spectator"Highly readable... An admirably balanced re-examination of the last phases of a conflict that it is not fashionable to remember." —Dan van der Vat, The Guardian"Engrossing.... Its originality lies in the meticulousness of the author's research and the amazing witnesses he has found." —Murray Sayle, The Evening Standard"Hastings is... a master of the sort of detail that illuminates the human cost. It is the way he leaps so adeptly to and fro between the vast panorama and the tiny snapshot pictures that makes him such a readable historian." —Mail on Sunday About the Author Max Hastings studied at Charterhouse and Oxford and became a foreign correspondent, reporting from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard. He has won many awards for his journalism. Among his bestselling books 'Bomber Command' won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both 'Overlord' and 'Battle for the Falklands' won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize. After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was knighted in 2002. He now lives in Berkshire. From The Washington Post Re