Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy

The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941 is an event that has been highly analyzed over the years. Ranging from conspiracy theories, and paranoia, and that President Roosevelt knew it was going to happen and did nothing; to the idea that America was just an innocent bystander that knew nothing before it happened. This book tries to tend the more middle ground: the United States knew that something might happen, they just did not know when. But this book, which I though would focus on Japan in 1941, feels like a two-headed dragon. The first half is just the previous five to six years of back story and background. You do not get to the specifics of 1941, as Japan was trying to pursue both war and diplomacy at the same time, until the last hundred pages or so. It is a book, well-written, that just feels it gets lost and side tracked, of trying to tell everyone’s back story and then jump back to 1941. It would have been much more powerful if it did just focus on 1941 in Japan, and not try to tell every detail of the previous six years.