Download or read book The Desperate Diplomat written by J. Garry Clifford and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 7, 1941, the course of U.S. history changed forever with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Three weeks prior, Japanese Special Envoy to the United States Saburo Kurusu visited Washington in an attempt to further peace talks between Japan and America and spare his country the loss he knew would occur if a war began. But as he reported, “Working for peace is not as simple as starting a war.” For more than seventy years, many have unfairly viewed Kurusu and his visit as part of the Pearl Harbor plot. Editors J. Garry Clifford and Masako R. Okura seek to dispel this myth with their edition of Kurusu’s memoir, The Desperate Diplomat. Kurusu published his personal memoir in 1952, in Japanese, describing his efforts to prevent war between the two nations, his total lack of knowledge regarding the Pearl Harbor attack, and what “might have been” had he been successful in his endeavor for peace, while offering an exclusive perspective on the Japanese reaction to the attack. However, the information contained in his memoir was unavailable to most of the world, save those fluent in Japanese, because it had never been published in another language. With the discovery of Kurusu’s own English memoir, his story can finally be told to a wider audience. Clifford and Okura have used both the Japanese and English memoirs and added an introduction and annotations to Kurusu’s story, making The Desperate Diplomat an essential look at an event that remains controversial in the history of both nations. Anyone who takes interest in the history of Pearl Harbor cannot afford to omit this previously unavailable information from their library.
Download or read book In the Cauldron written by Lew Paper and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The underbrush through which Mr. Paper cuts his way . . . would be challenging for any writer. But Mr. Paper, with an eye for character and an easy narrative style, manages to keep his subject interesting. . . . And even though we know how it’s all going to end, Mr. Paper manages to add a measure of suspense to his narrative — a tribute to his abilities as a writer.” —The Washington Times This is not just another book about Pearl Harbor. It is the story of Joseph Grew, America’s ambassador to Japan, and his frantic effort in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack to orchestrate an agreement between Japan and the United States to avoid the war he saw coming. It is a story filled with hope and heartache, with complex and fascinating characters, and with a drama befitting the momentous decisions at stake. And more than that, it is a story that has never been told. In those months before the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan and the United States were locked in a battle of wills. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's economic sanctions were crippling Japan. America's noose was tightening around Japan's neck — but the country's leaders refused to yield to American demands. In this cauldron of boiling tensions, Joseph Grew offered many recommendations to break the deadlock. Having resided and worked in Tokyo for almost ten years, Grew understood what Roosevelt and his administration back home did not: that the Japanese would rather face annihilation than endure the humiliation of surrendering to American pressure. The President and his administration saw little need to accept their ambassador’s recommendations. The administration’s policies, they believed, were sure to succeed. And so, with increasing urgency, Grew tried to explain to the President and his administration that Japan’s mindset could not be gauged by Western standards of logic and that the administration’s policies could lead Japan to embark on a suicidal war with the United States “with dangerous and dramatic suddenness.” Relying on Grew’s diaries, letters and memos, interviews with members of the families of Grew and his staff, and an abundance of other primary source materials, Lew Paper presents the gripping story of Grew’s effort to halt the downward spiral of Japan’s relations with the United States. Grew had to wrestle with an American government that would not listen to him – and simultaneously confront an increasingly hostile environment in Japan, where pervasive surveillance, arbitrary arrest, and even unspeakable torture by Japan's secret police were constant threats. In the Cauldron reads like a novel, but it is based on fact. And it is sure to raise questions whether the Pearl Harbor attack could have been avoided.
Download or read book The Saint written by Burl Barer and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2003-06-13 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The now legendary character created by Leslie Charteris has survived nearly three-quarters of a century of perilous action and narrow escapes with nary a hair out of place nor the slightest jolt to his jauntily tipped halo. From his earliest days battling "crooks, blood suckers, traders in vice and damnation" (and cracking the occasional safe on the side), the Saint has captured the imaginations of millions. Using the voluminous correspondence and writings of author Leslie Charteris and examining the many incarnations of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint," in other media, a detailed history emerges. Includes plot synopses of the radio and television programs, with air dates and production credits; descriptions of the movies and their credits; a bibliography, reviews of the books, and quotes from the principals.
Download or read book A Diplomat in Environmentalist s Clothing written by Raymond M. Robinson and published by BPS Books. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multilayered memoir of a life well lived, told in words that are informative, entertaining, funny, and truly inspiring. In A Diplomat in Environmentalist's Clothing, Ray Robinson relates how, as Canada's youngest diplomat, he rose to become, arguably, his country's most influential environmental official, serving throughout the first two decades of the contemporary environmental era. Robinson's account also details his central role in cleaning up the Great Lakes, battling acid rain, getting lead out of gasoline, and writing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The book is also a romantic, though sometimes troubled, personal tale. The illegitimate descendant of an aristocratic family with a thousand-year history, Robinson nearly died at birth in London, England, before being taken as an infant to be raised by his single mother on Canada's West Coast. Adventures abound, including facing the feared Soviet KGB, evading murderous attacks in a South American jungle, saving the life of a Canadian correspondent, and helping transform a very poor Bogota neighbourhood. After an unprecedented Parliamentary send-off, Robinson left for Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1991. Only fifty-four, he chose to end his Ottawa career and give full-time care to his wife, Ardith. Woven throughout this book are his experiences of a home life that has been dominated for nearly half a century by a battle with family schizophrenia, and more recently Alzheimer's, which tested the marital vow of "in sickness and in health" almost beyond the limit. A series of crises in far-off New Zealand forty-five years ago led to a dramatic spiritual transformation that enabled him and his wife to fulfill that vow and recently celebrate fifty-five years of marriage. Robinson also provides: constructive comment on the inside workings of Canada's Government and Parliament, with many anecdotes of working up close with fourteen different Cabinet ministers; insightful comparisons between Canada and the U.S., based on his many visits to Washington, DC, in an official capacity; informed commentary on some of the most important events of the last half of the twentieth century: the harsh realities of the NATO/Soviet Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, and, spilling into this century, the always daunting impediments to peace in the Middle East.
Download or read book Hitler s American Gamble written by Brendan Simms and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting account of the five most crucial days in twentieth-century diplomatic history: from Pearl Harbor to Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States By early December 1941, war had changed much of the world beyond recognition. Nazi Germany occupied most of the European continent, while in Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese War had turned China into a battleground. But these conflicts were not yet inextricably linked—and the United States remained at peace. Hitler’s American Gamble recounts the five days that upended everything: December 7 to 11. Tracing developments in real time and backed by deep archival research, historians Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman show how Hitler’s intervention was not the inexplicable decision of a man so bloodthirsty that he forgot all strategy, but a calculated risk that can only be understood in a truly global context. This book reveals how December 11, not Pearl Harbor, was the real watershed that created a world war and transformed international history.
Download or read book Not Quite A Diplomat written by Robin Renwick and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Described as Mrs Thatcher's favourite diplomat, Robin Renwick was at the centre of events in the negotiations to end the Rhodesian War. As Ambassador in South Africa, he played a bridging role between the government and the ANC, having become a trusted personal friend of Nelson Mandela and of F. W. de Klerk. In the Foreign Office, he played an integral part in forging the agreement that returned two thirds of our contribution to the European budget back to Britain. In Washington, where he became a confidant of George Bush Sr, then of Bill Clinton, he was deemed an exceptionally influential British Ambassador whose efforts were devoted to getting the US and its allies to take the actions needed to end the Bosnian War. Not Quite A Diplomat looks back over an illustrious career in the foreign service and paints vivid and revealing first-hand portraits of some of the giants of international politics over the past forty years, from Mandela and Mugabe to George Bush Sr, the Clintons and Margaret Thatcher. In this entertaining memoir, Renwick examines why diplomacy too often consists of ineffective posturing, and explores the likely effects of Brexit, Trump and, potentially, Jeremy Corbyn on Britain's standing in the world.
Download or read book A Diplomat s Memoir of 1870 written by Frederic Reitlinger and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Imagery The Day Before written by Willard Payne and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2013-10-25 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Horrific description and portrayal of the world after World War III. A world of global militarism, universally popular amidst displays of highly visual electronic religious ceremonies, initiations conducted on a world-wide scale designed to display the new enlightenment. The world being led by the most glorious-god like leaders in history especially in Rome
Download or read book Independent Diplomat written by Carne Ross and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As diplomats arbitrate more and more of the world's business, we have little idea - and even less control - of what they are doing in our name. 'Independent Diplomat' provides a compelling account of the conduct of foreign policy and diplomacy from the inside.
Download or read book Pearl Harbor written by Takuma Melber and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-10-22 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hawaii, 7th December 1941, shortly before 8 in the morning: Japanese torpedo bombers launch a surprise attack on the US Pacific fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. The devastating attack claims the lives of over 2,400 American soldiers, sinks or damages 18 ships and destroys nearly 350 aircraft. The US Congress declares war on Japan the following day. In this vivid and lively book, Takuma Melber breathes new life into the dramatic events that unfolded before, during and after Pearl Harbor by putting the perspective of the Japanese attackers at the centre of his account. This is the dimension commonly missing in most other histories of Pearl Harbor, and it gives Melber the opportunity to provide a fuller, more definitive and authoritative account of the battle, its background and its consequences. Melber sheds new light on the long negotiations that went on between the Japanese and Americans in 1941, and the confusion and argument among the Japanese political and military elite. He shows how US intelligence and military leaders in Washington failed to interpret correctly the information they had and to draw the necessary conclusions about the Japanese war intentions in advance of the attack. His account of the battle itself is informed by the latest research and benefits from including the planning and post-raid assessment by the Japanese commanders. His account also covers the second raid in March 1942 by two long-range seaplanes which was intended to destroy the shipyards so that ships damaged in the initial attack could not be repaired. This balanced and thoroughly researched book deepens our understanding of the battle that precipitated America’s entry into the war and it will appeal to anyone interested in World War II and military history.
Download or read book Jefferson written by Davidson Butler and published by New Word City. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1826, Thomas Jefferson was laid to rest at Monticello beside his wife and daughters. His epitaph, which he composed, reads, “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.” Jefferson’s tombstone does not bear a word of his political accomplishment - forty years as an officeholder, Virginia assemblyman, Continental congressman, ambassador to France, secretary of state, vice president, and president of the United States. He felt that these were honors the people had given him, and he wanted no credit for them. But the three accomplishments chiseled into the “coarse stone” he specified for his monument were his gifts to the people of the United States. They sum up Jefferson’s vision of a nation of free people with the education and culture to preserve and enjoy their freedom. Here is his story.
Download or read book Such Splendid Prisons written by Harvey Solomon and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the chaotic days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt administration made a dubious decision affecting hundreds of Axis diplomats remaining in the nation’s capital. To encourage reciprocal treatment of U.S. diplomats trapped abroad, Roosevelt sent Axis diplomats to remote luxury hotels—a move that enraged Americans stunned by the attack. This cause célèbre drove a fascinating yet forgotten story: the roundup, detention, and eventual repatriation of more than a thousand German, Japanese, Italian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian diplomats, families, staff, servants, journalists, students, businessmen, and spies. Such Splendid Prisons follows five of these internees whose privileged worlds came crashing down after December 7, 1941: a suave, calculating Nazi ambassador and his charming but conflicted wife; a wily veteran Japanese journalist; a beleaguered American wife of a Japanese spy posing as a diplomat; and a spirited but naive college-aged daughter of a German military attaché. The close, albeit luxurious, proximity in which these Axis power emissaries were forced to live with each other stripped away the veneer of false prewar diplomatic bonhomie. Conflicts ran deep not only among the captives but also among the rival U.S. agencies overseeing a detainment fraught with uncertainty, duplicity, lust, and romance. Harvey Solomon re-creates this wartime American period of deluxe detention, public outrage, hidden agendas, rancor and racism, and political machinations in a fascinating but forgotten story.
Download or read book The Currents of War written by Sidney L. Pash and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1899 until the American entry into World War II, U.S. presidents sought to preserve China's territorial integrity in order to guarantee American businesses access to Chinese markets -- a policy famously known as the "open door." Before the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Americans saw Japan as the open door's champion; but by the end of 1905, Tokyo had replaced St. Petersburg as its greatest threat. For the next thirty-six years, successive U.S. administrations worked to safeguard China and contain Japanese expansion on the mainland. The Currents of War reexamines the relationship between the United States and Japan and the casus belli in the Pacific through a fresh analysis of America's central foreign policy strategy in Asia. In this ambitious and compelling work, Sidney Pash offers a cautionary tale of oft-repeated mistakes and miscalculations. He demonstrates how continuous economic competition in the Asia-Pacific region heightened tensions between Japan and the United States for decades, eventually leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Pash's study is the first full reassessment of pre--World War II American-Japanese diplomatic relations in nearly three decades. It examines not only the ways in which U.S. policies led to war in the Pacific but also how this conflict gave rise to later confrontations, particularly in Korea and Vietnam. Wide-ranging and meticulously researched, this book offers a new perspective on a significant international relationship and its enduring consequences.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of World War II written by G. Kurt Piehler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-06 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II left virtually no nation or corner of the world untouched, dramatically transforming human life and society. It prompted the unprecedented mobilization of whole societies and witnessed a scale of state-sanctioned violence that staggers the imagination, with more than 100 million casualties. The war resulted in an almost complete collapse of any norms geared toward avoiding the unnecessary loss of civilian life and shaped the worldview and psyches of generations. The Oxford Handbook of World War II broadens traditional narratives of the war and in the process changes our understanding of this epic conflict. Organized both chronologically and thematically and with particular attention to the pre- and post-war eras, the Handbook revises and extends existing scholarship. With chapters on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, the land war in Western Europe, the Battle of Britain, the impact of war on the major combatants (Great Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and China), the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the decision to use the atomic bomb in 1945, and the cultural responses to the war, the chapters span much of the twentieth century. They suggest areas of scholarly consensus, identify interpretative clashes, and propose agendas for further scholarly investigation, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary inquiry. For example, the end of the Cold War had a profound impact on the way World War II was understood. Many formerly closed records in the former Soviet Union and China were opened to scholars, facilitating a more complex view of the Soviet war effort and suggesting that Stalin's army did not simply triumph by overwhelming German forces with sheer numbers but mastered the demands of a vast and logistically demanding front. In conceptualizing the volume, editors Kurt Piehler and Jonathan Grant also sought out contributions on lesser known aspects of the war, such as the Bengal famine in India, the treatment of prisoners of war, the role of Middle Eastern nations, and the activities of non-governmental organizations in ameliorating suffering. Spanning the rise and fall of the Versailles system to the postwar reintegration of veterans and the eventual commemoration of the conflict and its victims, The Oxford Handbook of World War II marks a landmark contribution to the historical literature of war.
Download or read book Life After Power written by Jared Cohen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-02-13 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller New York Times bestselling author of Accidental Presidents explores what happens after the most powerful job in the world: President of the United States. Former presidents have an unusual place in American life. King George III believed that George Washington’s departure after two terms made him “the greatest character of the age.” But Alexander Hamilton worried former presidents might “[wander] among the people like ghosts.” They were both right. Life After Power tells the stories of seven former presidents, from the Founding to today. Each changed history. Each offered lessons about how to decide what to do in the next chapter of life. Thomas Jefferson was the first former president to accomplish great things after the White House, shaping public debates and founding the University of Virginia, an accomplishment he included on his tombstone, unlike his presidency. John Quincy Adams served in Congress and became a leading abolitionist, passing the torch to Abraham Lincoln. Grover Cleveland was the only president in American history to serve a nonconsecutive term. William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Herbert Hoover shaped the modern conservative movement, led relief efforts after World War II, reorganized the executive branch, and reconciled John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter had the longest post-presidency in American history, advancing humanitarian causes, human rights, and peace. George W. Bush made a clean break from politics, bringing back George Washington’s precedent, and reminding the public that the institution of the presidency is bigger than any person. Jared Cohen explores the untold stories in the final chapters of these presidents’ lives, offering a gripping and illuminating account of how they went from President of the United States one day, to ordinary citizens the next. He tells how they handled very human problems of ego, finances, and questions about their legacy and mortality. He shows how these men made history after they left the White House.
Download or read book George Washington Parke Custis written by Charles S. Clark and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Washington Parke Custis (1781-1857) was raised at Mount Vernon by George and Martha Washington. Young "Wash" appears in Savage's 1789 painting of the first presidential family, his small hand placed symbolically on a globe. He would later make his mark on the national landscape by building Arlington House on the Potomac. A poor student, he emerged as an agricultural reformer and sought-after Federalist orator. He championed the plights of Irish Americans and war veterans. An important memoirist, he wrote well-received theatrical works and produced paintings rich in historical detail. Inheriting much of the vast Custis fortune, he also became the enslaver of more than 200 people. The slow march toward their emancipation became the central struggle of his life, particularly after his daughter's 1831 marriage to Robert E. Lee. This first full-length biography of Custis offers a 21st century reappraisal of life that dramatically bridged the American Revolution and the Civil War.
Download or read book The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450 1919 written by M.S. Anderson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though international relations and the rise and fall of European states are widely studied, little is available to students and non-specialists on the origins, development and operation of the diplomatic system through which these relations were conducted and regulated. Similarly neglected are the larger ideas and aspirations of international diplomacy that gradually emerged from its immediate functions. This impressive survey, written by one of our most experienced international historians, and covering the 500 years in which European diplomacy was largely a world to itself, triumphantly fills that gap.
