Japan 1941

Eri Hotta considers the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective and argues that when Japan launched hostilities against the United States in 1941, its leaders largely understood they were entering a war they were almost certain to lose. Her book Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy poses an essential question: Why did these men—military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor—put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in harm’s way? She draws on material little known to Western readers to find an answer.