Empires on the Pacific: World War II and the Struggle for the Mastery of Asia - Hardcover

Robert Smith Thompson smashes the traditional narratives of what World War II in the Pacific was all about. Standard histories of the Pacific Theater have focused on the military conflict between America and Japan, but such a simplistic historical focus ignores a crucial aspect of this period: America's imperial ambitions in East Asia. By moving China to center stage, Thompson casts the war in the Pacific in an entirely new light. What is commonly viewed as a discrete military conflict between an aggressive Japan with imperial ambitions and a reluctant, passive America now becomes the stuff of Greek tragedy. The over-reaching British Empire is waning, yet is unwilling to relinquish its foothold in China, while an increasingly ambitious Japan is determined to dominate the region and conquer China. Enter America, the ambitious, upstart power that represents the next generation of imperialism, also seeking to gain control over the ever-elusive prize: China.

Robert Smith Thompson teaches at the University of South Carolina. His book A Time for War: FDR and the Path to Pearl Harbor was the first serious work to argue that FDR provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor as a way of justifying America's entry into war. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina.