The New York Times said of Ronald H. Spector’s classic account of the American struggle against the Japanese in World War II, “N...
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reviews
Sep 05, 2010
David
rated it: 
Problematic. I came to this book right after reading Bayly and Harper's brilliant "Forgotten Armies". Which examines the British war in Asia during the second world war...leaving off shortly after the end of the war. This book picks up, pretty much, where the last one left off...and proceeds to the late 40s with some asinine commentary on Iraq and Afganistan thrown in.
It wasn't a, genuinely, bad book but it was mostly narrative historiography with little analysis thrown in... More...
It wasn't a, genuinely, bad book but it was mostly narrative historiography with little analysis thrown in... More...
Nov 25, 2011
Alexander
rated it: 
This book really didn't provide what I was looking for -- though to be fair that's probably more the result of my misplaced expectations than anything else.
I was hoping for a bigger-picture perspective on divvying up the Japanese Empire post WWII: geopolitical trends, tectonic shifts in policy, the aims and means of the Western powers, Communists and nationalists etc. Instead In the Ruins of Empire offers a blow by blow account of literally how the division of territory was handled. More...
I was hoping for a bigger-picture perspective on divvying up the Japanese Empire post WWII: geopolitical trends, tectonic shifts in policy, the aims and means of the Western powers, Communists and nationalists etc. Instead In the Ruins of Empire offers a blow by blow account of literally how the division of territory was handled. More...
Jan 23, 2008
K. M.
rated it:
A good attempt at a synthesis with lots of interesting anecdotes worth reading. Sources include a large number of US, British, French, and some Japanese archival docs, as well as others, and a lot of memoirs and other early postwar reminisces some of which are unpublished or took the form of letters to the author.
I can really appreciate how hard it is to bring this all together given the geographic and linguistic scope of the target. It really calls for a collaborative effort, es More...
I can really appreciate how hard it is to bring this all together given the geographic and linguistic scope of the target. It really calls for a collaborative effort, es More...
May 06, 2010
Doug
rated it: 
Thought it was going to be about the occupation of Japan after the war. Book was really about the aftermath of the war in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Very dry!
Aug 03, 2009
Jerome
rated it: 
Lots of good information here for history buffs and those interested in how things got to be such a mess in S.E. Asia and how we got sucked into that quagmire of politics at the end of WW2 with colonial powers and the people who wanted independence.
May 17, 2008
Ed
rated it:
Spector knows his stuff and presents it well. Describes a situation in which occupying powers failed in postwar East and Southeast Asia because there were no plans for reconstruction and return to civil government. Lots of mass slaughter, sectarian warfare made worse by the failed, poorly thought out policies of the occupying Allied forces.
Some lessons seem impossible to learn.
Some lessons seem impossible to learn.
May 28, 2008
Cameron
rated it: 
This was a fascinating book that covers the history of post-WWII Asia. Written largely to study the results of the occupying forces (European, American and Soviet) of Imperial Japan's colonies, it offers a sobering view of their successes and failures. It also provides an essential background history to the states of modern Asia. Highly recommended.
Apr 27, 2008
Terence
rated it:
Illuminating look at the occupation of Southeast Asia after WW2. As Gomer Pyle might say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!" -- it wasn't the well organized model that our myths tell us it was. Outside of Japan, where there actually was a post-war occupation plan, it resembled our debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sep 06, 2010
Chris
rated it:
World War II didn't end in Asia after the Japanese surrender. It drug on throughout Southeast Asia and China in all kinds of interesting, complicated, messy and horribly violent ways.
Apr 16, 2011
Bettie
rated it:
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