War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

Abstract

WAR WITHOUT MERCY: RACE AND POWER IN THE PACIFIC WAR. By John W. Dower. New York: Pantheon, 1986, 398 pp. $22.50. All those who were beyond infancy at the time of Pearl Harbor know that racism was a powerful and malign element on both sides of the Japanese-American war, but this has receded from historical consciousness over the decades. John Dower, an American historian of modern Japanese culture, has brilliantly described and analyzed that racism in one of the handful of truly important books on the Pacific war. Using an imaginative range of sources?government archives, cartoons, movies, private letters? he has recreated the reciprocal stereotypes of the time and has shown their grim connection to the ruthlessness of that war. This is a cautionary tale for all peoples, now and in the future. THE PAPERS OF GENERAL GEORGE CATLETT MARSHALL. VOL. II: WE CANNOT DELAY?July 1, 1939-December 6, 1941. Edited by Larry I. Bland, Sharon R. Ritenour and Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr. Balti more: Johns Hopkins, 1986, 746 pp. $35.00. The first volume of this competently edited publication (1981) covered the first 59 years of General Marshall's life; this volume covers 29 months. Marshall's capacity to deal simultaneously with minutiae and the largest issues of national security is clearly documented in his own letters and memoranda, leaving no doubt that he was a genius at preparing for war at a time when Congress and public opinion were ambivalent and the President uncertain and devious.