The difficult mission of a regime change: Toshio Nishi gives an account of how America converted the Japanese mindset from war to peace following World War II.

Herbert Hoover's "magnum opus"—at last published nearly fifty years after its completion—offers a revisionist reexamination of World War II and its cold war aftermath and a sweeping indictment of the "lost statesmanship" of Franklin Roosevelt. Hoover offers his frank evaluation of Roosevelt's foreign policies before Pearl Harbor and policies during the war, as well as an examination of the war's consequences, including the expansion of the Soviet empire at war's end and the eruption of the cold war against the Communists.

The Battalion Artist explores the three years, three months, and three days of Nat Bellantoni's life on the Pacific front in World War II. He had known since childhood that he wanted to be--that he in fact was--an artist. When he packed his seabag and took leave of his family and his sweetheart to go to war, he knew that the best way to manage the narrative of his life and to cope with the ups and downs of his feelings was to create images--visual records that spoke of what he felt, as well as what he saw. In this stunning book filled with authentic World War II images--many in full color--we see and feel the intensity of wartime life through the eyes of a talented young artist who was also a US Navy Seabee. Natale Bellantoni, a young art student from Boston, sailed across the Pacific in 1943-45 and returned home with a sea chest of art and photographs documenting his experiences in New Caledonia, New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, and Okinawa. His subject matter was his daily life: endless weeks at sea, harbors and ships, men at work, airstrips, the local countryside, and the view of enemy planes overhead at night from his fox hole. Now collected in a lavishly illustrated volume, his watercolors, sketches, and photographs offer a window onto one of the most significant moments in American history. The Battalion Artist explores the World War II experiences of Nat Bellantoni, but it reflects the story of an entire generation.

In the years before the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, Guam was a paradise for the Navy, Marine and civilian employees of Pan American Airways, who found themselves stationed on the island. However their apprehension about the fate of the island increased as they anticipated a Japanese attack in the fall of 1941. Shortly after attack on Pearl Harbor, Guam was bombed and the Japanese invasion soon followed. Since Guam was not heavily fortified it soon fell to the invading Japanese. In the takeover of the island, the Japanese practiced a swift brutality against the captive Americans as well as native population, and then immediately removed the American military and civilian personnel to Japan. Only a lucky few escaped, including five Navy nurses and dependent Ruby Hellmers and her baby Charlene, who were transported back to America aboard the Swedish ship Gripsholm in mid-1942. In Captured, Mansell tells the story of the captives from Guam, whose story until now has largely been forgotten. Drawing upon interviews with survivors, diaries and archival records, Mansell documents the movements of American military and civilian men as they went from one Japanese POW camp to another, slowly starving as they performed slave labor for Japanese companies. Meanwhile, he describes the brutal horrors suffered by Guamian natives during Japan’s occupation of the island, especially as the Japanese prepared for American forces to re-take this U.S. possession in 1945. Moving stories of liberation, transportation home, and the aftermath of these horrific experiences are narrated as the book draws to a close. Mansell concludes that America’s lack of military preparation, disbelief in Japan’s ambitions in the Pacific, and focus on Europe all contributed to the captivity of more than three years of suffering for the forgotten Americans from Guam as the Pacific War raged around them. Captured was completed by historian Linda Goetz Holmes after the death of Roger Mansell.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Historical Dictionary of Historical Dictionary of Postwar Japan relates the history of postwar Japan through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, events, places, organizations.