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Let the Sea Make a Noise...: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur
In this exceptionally innovative work, Walter McDougall projects on a large screen four hundred years of exciting voyages of discovery, pioneering feats, engineering marvels, political plots and business chicanery, racial clashes and brutal wars. It is a chronicle complete with little-known facts and turning points, but always focused on the remarkable people at the center of events, among them the America-loving Japanese ambassador to Washington on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Russian builder of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and a Hawaiian queen during the first period of Western competition for the islands. Let the Sea Make a Noise . . . is a gripping account of the rise and fall of the empires in the last, vast, unexplored corner of the habitable earth -- an area occupying one-sixth of the globe. There is no other book that covers these same subjects in this wealth of detail and with such chronological scope.
848 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
9 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
About the author
Walter A. McDougall
17 books27 followersWalter A. McDougall is Professor of History and the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 6, 2010
If you ever encounter this book in a book store, you really must get it and read it. Thats how I found it, in an outlet mall in Monterey.
Its a great history of the modern world, which is the world where the North Pacific became central to geopolitics...from Magellan to WWII.
Its a great history of the modern world, which is the world where the North Pacific became central to geopolitics...from Magellan to WWII.
March 29, 2025
More than a resource. An experience. McDougall throws off convention and offers a unique reading experience that allows the reader the stay captivated throughout this hefty work. There is a lot of information in this book, yes. But you will have a lot of fun reading it. Part novel, part history, part passion project, Let The Sea Make a Noise is an admirable history and one of the few non-fiction books that makes you want to start over right after finishing it.
January 28, 2024
Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to Macarthur is a work of major breadth that spans four centuries of momentous changes. Historian Walter A. McDougall attempted to analyze the threads connecting the cultural, social, and political developments of the power players and faux power players in the central and northern Pacific Ocean region.
McDougall often refers to influence in the northern Pacific ocean as resting on three triangles: Japan, Russia, and the United States. China is undergoing a dynastic collapse at the book's outset, and by its conclusion a complicated Communist era relationship with the Soviet Union (the book was published in the early 1990s and written at the zenith of late ‘80s anti-Japanese feelings in the West) had been played out.
Spain has a role in the American southwest and from California through the Pacific Northwest at the beginning of the book, but their Pacific influence increasingly fades before being smashed completely (thanks in large part to Admiral George Dewey) following the 1898 Spanish-American War.
British efforts to expand into the Pacific Northwest via its Hudson Bay Company and Royal Navy Officer George Vancouver’s expedition (by sea) collided with U.S. efforts (largely by land) at fur trapping led by the likes of the Astor company. Although it did not lead to war, the negotiations which led to the border being set at 49 parallel north between British Columbia and the U.S. were analyzed by McDougall.
The author utilized a unique tactic for a nonfiction book.
The narrative periodically reverts back to a mystical conversation between a series of historical figures from different nations whose accomplishments and life work were related directly or indirectly to the Pacific Ocean. The historical characters present here, who discuss what has been introduced up to that point from their own individual perspectives, provide a diverse representation of viewpoints in this region.
Russian statesman Sergei Witte is present to give Russia’s perspective. Queen Kaahumanu of Hawaii is the leading inquisitor and the one who seemingly summoned all of the different figures; Spanish Catholic priest Junipero Serra (who was a 1700s Spanish California as a missionary) also participates. The scholar (presumably author Walter A. McDougall) also spearheads the conversation, while Japan’s point of view is provided by way of 1930s Japanese ambassador to the U.S. Hiresi Saito. Homer Lea, who would leave the U.S. to aid Sun yat-Sen’s Chinese ambitions, also made several guest appearances for good measure.
The efforts of Odo Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi to unite Japan during the sixteenth century shogunate era and its subsequent giving way to isolation (sakoku) was examined early on. The closing of Japan’s doors and awful persecution of Christians following the 1638 Shimabara Rebellion of course was looked at within the context of Japan shutting itself to foreign influence from the Edo Period until the Meiji Restoration two and a half centuries later.
The author makes the observation in the 'Nagasaki 1638' chapter that Japan’s “archipelago sits offshore of the Eurasian landmass like a mirror image of the British isles,” and he takes the view that Japan seeing themselves as an Asian version of Britain rather than desiring to be an Asiatic land power would have served them better in the long run.
The interplay between the U.S. west coast (and California specifically) and Asia is of particular importance. While the introduction of Chinese workers takes place during the 1840s gold rush, the back and forth with Japan set a bad precedent at the turn of the twentieth century.
As the book puts it, “in the age of steam engines, say, from 1850 to 1905, Western man broke the bonds of winds and currents and gained the power to travel the oceans in any direction. Steam navigation conquered the remoteness of Hawaii, the contrary currents off California and the Asian monsoons, not to mention the sheer distance that previously made the Pacific so daunting. Steam power opened the few great rivers of the North Pacific, like the Sacramento and the Amur, to oceangoing ships…and made possible the transport of hundreds of thousands of people to, or across, the Pacific.” Therefore “in the age of steam the whites’ technology forced open the ports of East Asia, then shipped their peoples abroad in such numbers that the white began to fear for their own future….Navies and merchant fleets needed coaling stations on coasts and islands astride their routes, a fact that helped to promote new forms of Pacific imperialism.”
This movement of Japanese emigrants to California caused considerable friction. While the horrors of pre-Meiji Restoration Japan’s treatment of Christians and outsider influence was well documented, the U.S. would demonstrate its own form of anti-foreign hysteria toward would-be immigrants. Aggressive rhetoric was heard from the Japanese government when discriminatory laws were passed which even barred Japanese students from California schools in the early twentieth century. Elected leaders like California’s Hiram Johnson do not come across looking well in this nativist, anti-Japanese climate which served as another front in the Yellow Peril.
The devastating 1906 earthquake in San Francisco caused massive, though temporary, destruction in the city. Chinatown was completely destroyed by the quake and resulting fires, and the tension over how to go about rebuilding this area underscored the perils of the Yellow Peril during that decade. (This would not be the only devastating natural disaster looked at in the book, as a harrowing account of the 1923 Tokyo-Yokohama quake which took the lives of 140,000 Japanese is put forward in a memorable section.)
The 1924 Immigration Act was the crowning achievement of this sad time. It was a law which came on the heels of Japan playing a role on the Allied side in the recently ended Great War, and the book demonstrates how gestures like this aided in mistrust toward Americans and the West on the part of Japanese in the generation before Pearl Harbor. The internment of Japanese on the west coast of the U.S. would add yet another depressing side note to the two countries' relationship.
Regarding the arguments put forward as to why so many in Japan succumbed to a form of fascism in the post-World War One environment, the book notes that the line of thinking went: “to a country poor in raw materials and farmland, and dependent on exports to prosper, the collapse of world trade was the worst possible disaster. No wonder it seemed to more Japanese than ever that the whole 1920s world order-disarmament, Open Door, arbitration-had brought them nothing but grief and shame. Even Europe, Britain, and the United States were verging on social collapse, and to think that the Japanese had, in weak moments, been eager to copy their ways! So why should Japan swallow more of the same from pro-Western civilians in Tokyo? Perhaps the righteous military critics were the saviors of the Yamato race after all.”
Although it comes and goes in the book, China had a role in the region which at times paralleled and at times was the near opposite of Japan's. Macdougall writes early on in the book that “the very Manchurian origins of the new (Ch’ing) dynasty, the specific way they took power in China, and their natural bias toward land power all ensured that China would not project its power beyond, up, or down the Pacific coast…China, like Japan, was content to stay home during the climactic tears of European exploration. Manchu energies were absorbed by forty years of tough campaigns to subdue the surviving Ming loyalists in the south.”
The Open Door Policy of the late 1800s and the Boxer Rebellion are components of China’s past of particular relevance to Westerners during this period. U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s role in “opening” Japan to the West was similar to the “opening” of China to foreign markets courtesy of steam power in naval navigation during the Open Door era. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt would send the U.S. Great White Fleet on a global journey in large part to demonstrate-firsthand-newfound American naval power in Pacific ports.
In addition to these Western-adjacent elements in China, however, the Taiping Rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century is something which no scholar of the region would overlook. Resulting in the deaths of approximately twenty million Chinese, the scope of this tragedy is a topic the author takes care to work into the story. Britain’s efforts to peddle opium on China is another-but not the last-sad fate to visit that latter country during the timeframe covered.
There is also quite a bit written about Hawaii.
Its location naturally led it to being targeted for control by both Japan and the U.S., but prior to this both Russia and England had hoped to bring it into their respective Pacific orbits. Captain James Cook met a brutal fate attempting to explore the islands on behalf of Britain, but his bloody demise was only a small portion of the violence the paradise islands would experience as various groups fought to consolidate their grip on power.
As previously mentioned, Queen Kaahumanu plays a big role in this portion of the story, but kings like Kauikeouli and Kalakaua (and various Kamehamehas) take part in a series of constantly shifting alliances which U.S. politicians, military officials, and business magnates ultimately end up dominating.
Warm weather areas are not the exclusive locus of Let the Sea Make a Noise.
The four thousand plus miles from the Ural Mountains to the Bering Strait are a region which crop up continually in the book. The scramble for the land from the Bering Strait down to Vancouver in British Columbia all the way to San Diego makes for a worthwhile story to read about.
The rivalry between Russians, Americans, Britons, and even Spain over parts of these areas demonstrated how up for grabs this region was during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Alexander Baranov’s journey to the Kodiak region on behalf of Catherine the Great, as well as Russian efforts to create settlements from Sitka to the Aleutians to the Kamchatka Peninsula, underscored a time when the Romanovs felt that the area from the Urals to Alaska could become a crucial, contributing component of their empire.
Alexander III’s early reign would even consist of increased efforts to encourage immigration to Siberia, a quest helped when the region experienced a gold rush of sorts when the metal was found in the Amur region. Nikolai Muraviev also took part in attempts to expand Russia’s imperial reach to the Amur, a task which involved negotiations with the Chinese in this border region.
Sergei Witte’s role in the trans-Siberian railway’s construction would be a big component of geopolitics in this region; the railway would even still be significant at the close of World War One, as both U.S. and Japanese troops were stationed in the region to allegedly prevent warlordism and the fall of the railway into Bolshevik hands.
Secretary of State William Seward’s push for purchase of the “ice box” that was Alaska for the United States ended up delineating the line between Russian control in Siberia and U.S. control of Alaska. But prior to this there had seemed a real chance that Alaska would provide Russians with a colonial foothold in the north Pacific to complement the Kamchatka Peninsula.
A slew of other Pacific-related topics are also delved into.
The shenanigans and struggles that went into the Panama Canal’s construction, the odd situation involving Czecho-Slovak military personnel, the Omsk Provisional Siberian government, U.S. Major General William S. Graves, and Alexander Kolchak during the Russian civil war, and Chiang kai-Shek’s parlays with Mao in mid-twentieth century China are just some of the topics which could have easily constituted a book of their own devoted to it.
Even more than Siberia, Manchuria was a source of conflict between aspiring powers. Russian fighting with Japan would take place in contested border regions near Mongolia and Manchuria. The Nomonhan incident set off a clash between the two countries in the early stages of World War Two, fighting which is often overlooked in the broader context of the Red Army's fighting in the eastern Europe theater.
Manchuria would also become a major flashpoint between Japan and China, and the Manchukuo region would be a source of violence and friction during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first war between the two countries, in which Japan dominated in the 1890s, also featured a conflict over control of the Korean Peninsula. This latter area would be important in Chinese-as well as U.S. and Soviet-foreign policy importance again in the early years of the Cold War, which is where the last chapter leaves off (hence the reference to Macarthur in the subtitle).
This region was also relevant to the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. Furthermore, elements of this conflict like the Battle of Mukden, the Port Arthur fighting, and Japan’s annihilation of Russia’s navy at the Tsushima Straits are covered quickly but with just enough depth to inform readers about the bigger north Pacific-related picture.
The leadup to Japanese expansionism in the 1930s and 1940s having been delved into, the author then spends close to one hundred pages on the Pacific War and subsequent Cold War. The fighting is examined from both a geopolitical and military perspective, with Macdougall analyzing the decisions made by top brass officials in Japan like Hideki Tojo and the likes of Douglas Macarthur for the United States. The island fights are of course broken down, but so is the fighting on the mainland between China and Japan, a portion of the non-European part of the war which also held relevance to Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.
This would lead to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the onset of the Cold War, with the postwar handling of Japan by U.S. policymakers a particular point of focus in the concluding section.
The Cold War presented within the context of the lands liberated from imperial Japanese control made for a different perspective than a lot of American books on the period.
As Macdougall puts it: “In forty years of Cold War the United States and Russia competed directly for North Pacific power for the first time since the 1820s, when Alexander I issued his famous ukase. The Cold War was much else besides but was surely the latest expression of the triangular logic that governs that part of the world. Just as Japan and Russia clashed at the turn of the century, during which time the U.S. rose to Pacific prominence, and just as the U.S., and Japan clashed from 1907 to 1945, during which time Russia regained Pacific prominence, so after 1950 the U.S. and Russia clashed, during which time Japan recouped in spectacular fashion. ..Thanks to the burden Americans bore, Pacific people emerged freer and wealthier than ever before, and more at peace than at any time since the eighteenth century.”
Let the Sea Make a Noise is a comprehensive history of a vitally important region of the world. Macdougall was careful to devote attention to various perspectives and viewpoints, and readers will come away with a deeper knowledge of how the course of world events have been shaped by the goings-on in the nations of the north Pacific.
The discussions between the various historical figures was an innovative touch, and its helped to better bring together the broader narrative. There was admittedly a lot of ground covered, but Macdougall did a really nice job weaving the north Pacific's history together into a coherent and readable format.
The book is deserving of five stars for the skill with which it pulled off a bringing together of the histories of lands ranging from Japan, China, and Hawaii, China, to Russia and the United States. The resentments Americans felt toward the Japanese-and vice versa-will become easier to comprehend, as will the tensions which arose between Russia and the United States even within the context of the northern Pacific.
Reading Let the Sea Make a Noise is worthwhile and a must do undertaking for those intrigued by the back stories of this critically important region of the world.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
McDougall often refers to influence in the northern Pacific ocean as resting on three triangles: Japan, Russia, and the United States. China is undergoing a dynastic collapse at the book's outset, and by its conclusion a complicated Communist era relationship with the Soviet Union (the book was published in the early 1990s and written at the zenith of late ‘80s anti-Japanese feelings in the West) had been played out.
Spain has a role in the American southwest and from California through the Pacific Northwest at the beginning of the book, but their Pacific influence increasingly fades before being smashed completely (thanks in large part to Admiral George Dewey) following the 1898 Spanish-American War.
British efforts to expand into the Pacific Northwest via its Hudson Bay Company and Royal Navy Officer George Vancouver’s expedition (by sea) collided with U.S. efforts (largely by land) at fur trapping led by the likes of the Astor company. Although it did not lead to war, the negotiations which led to the border being set at 49 parallel north between British Columbia and the U.S. were analyzed by McDougall.
The author utilized a unique tactic for a nonfiction book.
The narrative periodically reverts back to a mystical conversation between a series of historical figures from different nations whose accomplishments and life work were related directly or indirectly to the Pacific Ocean. The historical characters present here, who discuss what has been introduced up to that point from their own individual perspectives, provide a diverse representation of viewpoints in this region.
Russian statesman Sergei Witte is present to give Russia’s perspective. Queen Kaahumanu of Hawaii is the leading inquisitor and the one who seemingly summoned all of the different figures; Spanish Catholic priest Junipero Serra (who was a 1700s Spanish California as a missionary) also participates. The scholar (presumably author Walter A. McDougall) also spearheads the conversation, while Japan’s point of view is provided by way of 1930s Japanese ambassador to the U.S. Hiresi Saito. Homer Lea, who would leave the U.S. to aid Sun yat-Sen’s Chinese ambitions, also made several guest appearances for good measure.
The efforts of Odo Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi to unite Japan during the sixteenth century shogunate era and its subsequent giving way to isolation (sakoku) was examined early on. The closing of Japan’s doors and awful persecution of Christians following the 1638 Shimabara Rebellion of course was looked at within the context of Japan shutting itself to foreign influence from the Edo Period until the Meiji Restoration two and a half centuries later.
The author makes the observation in the 'Nagasaki 1638' chapter that Japan’s “archipelago sits offshore of the Eurasian landmass like a mirror image of the British isles,” and he takes the view that Japan seeing themselves as an Asian version of Britain rather than desiring to be an Asiatic land power would have served them better in the long run.
The interplay between the U.S. west coast (and California specifically) and Asia is of particular importance. While the introduction of Chinese workers takes place during the 1840s gold rush, the back and forth with Japan set a bad precedent at the turn of the twentieth century.
As the book puts it, “in the age of steam engines, say, from 1850 to 1905, Western man broke the bonds of winds and currents and gained the power to travel the oceans in any direction. Steam navigation conquered the remoteness of Hawaii, the contrary currents off California and the Asian monsoons, not to mention the sheer distance that previously made the Pacific so daunting. Steam power opened the few great rivers of the North Pacific, like the Sacramento and the Amur, to oceangoing ships…and made possible the transport of hundreds of thousands of people to, or across, the Pacific.” Therefore “in the age of steam the whites’ technology forced open the ports of East Asia, then shipped their peoples abroad in such numbers that the white began to fear for their own future….Navies and merchant fleets needed coaling stations on coasts and islands astride their routes, a fact that helped to promote new forms of Pacific imperialism.”
This movement of Japanese emigrants to California caused considerable friction. While the horrors of pre-Meiji Restoration Japan’s treatment of Christians and outsider influence was well documented, the U.S. would demonstrate its own form of anti-foreign hysteria toward would-be immigrants. Aggressive rhetoric was heard from the Japanese government when discriminatory laws were passed which even barred Japanese students from California schools in the early twentieth century. Elected leaders like California’s Hiram Johnson do not come across looking well in this nativist, anti-Japanese climate which served as another front in the Yellow Peril.
The devastating 1906 earthquake in San Francisco caused massive, though temporary, destruction in the city. Chinatown was completely destroyed by the quake and resulting fires, and the tension over how to go about rebuilding this area underscored the perils of the Yellow Peril during that decade. (This would not be the only devastating natural disaster looked at in the book, as a harrowing account of the 1923 Tokyo-Yokohama quake which took the lives of 140,000 Japanese is put forward in a memorable section.)
The 1924 Immigration Act was the crowning achievement of this sad time. It was a law which came on the heels of Japan playing a role on the Allied side in the recently ended Great War, and the book demonstrates how gestures like this aided in mistrust toward Americans and the West on the part of Japanese in the generation before Pearl Harbor. The internment of Japanese on the west coast of the U.S. would add yet another depressing side note to the two countries' relationship.
Regarding the arguments put forward as to why so many in Japan succumbed to a form of fascism in the post-World War One environment, the book notes that the line of thinking went: “to a country poor in raw materials and farmland, and dependent on exports to prosper, the collapse of world trade was the worst possible disaster. No wonder it seemed to more Japanese than ever that the whole 1920s world order-disarmament, Open Door, arbitration-had brought them nothing but grief and shame. Even Europe, Britain, and the United States were verging on social collapse, and to think that the Japanese had, in weak moments, been eager to copy their ways! So why should Japan swallow more of the same from pro-Western civilians in Tokyo? Perhaps the righteous military critics were the saviors of the Yamato race after all.”
Although it comes and goes in the book, China had a role in the region which at times paralleled and at times was the near opposite of Japan's. Macdougall writes early on in the book that “the very Manchurian origins of the new (Ch’ing) dynasty, the specific way they took power in China, and their natural bias toward land power all ensured that China would not project its power beyond, up, or down the Pacific coast…China, like Japan, was content to stay home during the climactic tears of European exploration. Manchu energies were absorbed by forty years of tough campaigns to subdue the surviving Ming loyalists in the south.”
The Open Door Policy of the late 1800s and the Boxer Rebellion are components of China’s past of particular relevance to Westerners during this period. U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s role in “opening” Japan to the West was similar to the “opening” of China to foreign markets courtesy of steam power in naval navigation during the Open Door era. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt would send the U.S. Great White Fleet on a global journey in large part to demonstrate-firsthand-newfound American naval power in Pacific ports.
In addition to these Western-adjacent elements in China, however, the Taiping Rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century is something which no scholar of the region would overlook. Resulting in the deaths of approximately twenty million Chinese, the scope of this tragedy is a topic the author takes care to work into the story. Britain’s efforts to peddle opium on China is another-but not the last-sad fate to visit that latter country during the timeframe covered.
There is also quite a bit written about Hawaii.
Its location naturally led it to being targeted for control by both Japan and the U.S., but prior to this both Russia and England had hoped to bring it into their respective Pacific orbits. Captain James Cook met a brutal fate attempting to explore the islands on behalf of Britain, but his bloody demise was only a small portion of the violence the paradise islands would experience as various groups fought to consolidate their grip on power.
As previously mentioned, Queen Kaahumanu plays a big role in this portion of the story, but kings like Kauikeouli and Kalakaua (and various Kamehamehas) take part in a series of constantly shifting alliances which U.S. politicians, military officials, and business magnates ultimately end up dominating.
Warm weather areas are not the exclusive locus of Let the Sea Make a Noise.
The four thousand plus miles from the Ural Mountains to the Bering Strait are a region which crop up continually in the book. The scramble for the land from the Bering Strait down to Vancouver in British Columbia all the way to San Diego makes for a worthwhile story to read about.
The rivalry between Russians, Americans, Britons, and even Spain over parts of these areas demonstrated how up for grabs this region was during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Alexander Baranov’s journey to the Kodiak region on behalf of Catherine the Great, as well as Russian efforts to create settlements from Sitka to the Aleutians to the Kamchatka Peninsula, underscored a time when the Romanovs felt that the area from the Urals to Alaska could become a crucial, contributing component of their empire.
Alexander III’s early reign would even consist of increased efforts to encourage immigration to Siberia, a quest helped when the region experienced a gold rush of sorts when the metal was found in the Amur region. Nikolai Muraviev also took part in attempts to expand Russia’s imperial reach to the Amur, a task which involved negotiations with the Chinese in this border region.
Sergei Witte’s role in the trans-Siberian railway’s construction would be a big component of geopolitics in this region; the railway would even still be significant at the close of World War One, as both U.S. and Japanese troops were stationed in the region to allegedly prevent warlordism and the fall of the railway into Bolshevik hands.
Secretary of State William Seward’s push for purchase of the “ice box” that was Alaska for the United States ended up delineating the line between Russian control in Siberia and U.S. control of Alaska. But prior to this there had seemed a real chance that Alaska would provide Russians with a colonial foothold in the north Pacific to complement the Kamchatka Peninsula.
A slew of other Pacific-related topics are also delved into.
The shenanigans and struggles that went into the Panama Canal’s construction, the odd situation involving Czecho-Slovak military personnel, the Omsk Provisional Siberian government, U.S. Major General William S. Graves, and Alexander Kolchak during the Russian civil war, and Chiang kai-Shek’s parlays with Mao in mid-twentieth century China are just some of the topics which could have easily constituted a book of their own devoted to it.
Even more than Siberia, Manchuria was a source of conflict between aspiring powers. Russian fighting with Japan would take place in contested border regions near Mongolia and Manchuria. The Nomonhan incident set off a clash between the two countries in the early stages of World War Two, fighting which is often overlooked in the broader context of the Red Army's fighting in the eastern Europe theater.
Manchuria would also become a major flashpoint between Japan and China, and the Manchukuo region would be a source of violence and friction during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first war between the two countries, in which Japan dominated in the 1890s, also featured a conflict over control of the Korean Peninsula. This latter area would be important in Chinese-as well as U.S. and Soviet-foreign policy importance again in the early years of the Cold War, which is where the last chapter leaves off (hence the reference to Macarthur in the subtitle).
This region was also relevant to the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. Furthermore, elements of this conflict like the Battle of Mukden, the Port Arthur fighting, and Japan’s annihilation of Russia’s navy at the Tsushima Straits are covered quickly but with just enough depth to inform readers about the bigger north Pacific-related picture.
The leadup to Japanese expansionism in the 1930s and 1940s having been delved into, the author then spends close to one hundred pages on the Pacific War and subsequent Cold War. The fighting is examined from both a geopolitical and military perspective, with Macdougall analyzing the decisions made by top brass officials in Japan like Hideki Tojo and the likes of Douglas Macarthur for the United States. The island fights are of course broken down, but so is the fighting on the mainland between China and Japan, a portion of the non-European part of the war which also held relevance to Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.
This would lead to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the onset of the Cold War, with the postwar handling of Japan by U.S. policymakers a particular point of focus in the concluding section.
The Cold War presented within the context of the lands liberated from imperial Japanese control made for a different perspective than a lot of American books on the period.
As Macdougall puts it: “In forty years of Cold War the United States and Russia competed directly for North Pacific power for the first time since the 1820s, when Alexander I issued his famous ukase. The Cold War was much else besides but was surely the latest expression of the triangular logic that governs that part of the world. Just as Japan and Russia clashed at the turn of the century, during which time the U.S. rose to Pacific prominence, and just as the U.S., and Japan clashed from 1907 to 1945, during which time Russia regained Pacific prominence, so after 1950 the U.S. and Russia clashed, during which time Japan recouped in spectacular fashion. ..Thanks to the burden Americans bore, Pacific people emerged freer and wealthier than ever before, and more at peace than at any time since the eighteenth century.”
Let the Sea Make a Noise is a comprehensive history of a vitally important region of the world. Macdougall was careful to devote attention to various perspectives and viewpoints, and readers will come away with a deeper knowledge of how the course of world events have been shaped by the goings-on in the nations of the north Pacific.
The discussions between the various historical figures was an innovative touch, and its helped to better bring together the broader narrative. There was admittedly a lot of ground covered, but Macdougall did a really nice job weaving the north Pacific's history together into a coherent and readable format.
The book is deserving of five stars for the skill with which it pulled off a bringing together of the histories of lands ranging from Japan, China, and Hawaii, China, to Russia and the United States. The resentments Americans felt toward the Japanese-and vice versa-will become easier to comprehend, as will the tensions which arose between Russia and the United States even within the context of the northern Pacific.
Reading Let the Sea Make a Noise is worthwhile and a must do undertaking for those intrigued by the back stories of this critically important region of the world.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
September 3, 2007
A creative way to look at history with all of the political and geographical implications that were lost in the textbooks!
I wish someone would follow this model for the Red Sea, the Adriatic coast lines, the Nile and so on!
I love the use of "mediums" to communicate the issues of the times and how he's not afraid to to show how pop culture and religion have influences nations!
If only they could be this honest in schools.
Don't be daunted by the size of this tome. It is a history book after all and can be read out of order.
I wish someone would follow this model for the Red Sea, the Adriatic coast lines, the Nile and so on!
I love the use of "mediums" to communicate the issues of the times and how he's not afraid to to show how pop culture and religion have influences nations!
If only they could be this honest in schools.
Don't be daunted by the size of this tome. It is a history book after all and can be read out of order.
June 21, 2008
Very comprehensive and really interesting to read about how many different nations were trying to control this region and why. The length is daunting, but it is entertaining and informative to read.
January 5, 2010
Absolutely brilliant book combining big-picture perspectives with fascinating historical anecdotes.
March 25, 2016
Review of this, among other books here:
http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com...
http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com...
November 15, 2018
The parts of this book that are history are excellent, a gripping story well told. The parts that aren’t history, are, well, an interesting idea that doesn’t quite work. The story of the North Pacific is outside the scope of most American history. Basically, we learn about “Seward’s Folly,” the purchase of Alaska from the Russians, and the force majeure power play that made Hawaii a U.S. territory. There is much, much more to the story. It is full of outsize personalities and heroic feats of courage and endurance, but also, as always seems to be the case, of exploitation, subjugation, and brutality toward the peoples who already lived there.
With hindsight, history seems to have a certain air of inevitability, but of course, things did not have to turn out the way they did. The Russians, coming down from Alaska, and the Spanish, coming up from South America, both claimed the west coast of North American, and either of them could have taken it, or split it between them. But the Pacific was a long way from Madrid and Moscow. The Spaniards were overextended and constantly at war, and the Russians were just beginning to reach out to the east in an attempt to open up trade routes to the Atlantic. Britain, which reached the area through their voyages of exploration, including by the indomitable James Cook, and later overland through Canada, had a weaker claim politically but a stronger one militarily. They could have taken and held the entire west coast of North America, and perhaps pushed down into Central and South America as well, but once again, the Pacific was peripheral to their main strategic objectives, and by the time they seriously considered it, it was easier to negotiate with the new American government than to fight another war a long way from home.
The author’s description of Hawaii is also interesting and informative. By the mid eighteen-hundreds it had become the reprovisioning and overwintering destination for whalers and merchant vessels of many nations. Its strategic location put it in play with countries that were by this time experts in suborning rulers. The local monarchy did not help their cause, as they were weak, corrupt, and violent. It was inevitable that one of the great powers would devour it, and eventually it was the Americans who did so, led by their plantation owners, citing the usual fig leaf of protecting their citizens.
By the time Hawaii was in play Japan had emerged as another contender for the islands. The story of their political emergence sheds light on subsequent events, such as the discrimination they faced in the United States. There is no excuse for the way they were treated, but their home government’s actions militated against them. The Japanese government assumed that all of their people in any foreign land were Fifth Columnists who were actively working to bring it under Japanese rule. Since they were open about this objective, it is not surprising that the other nations responded with hostility.
And now the part that doesn’t work. The flow of the story is repeatedly interrupted with invented conversations between characters who played a part in events, even though most of them never met, and in some cases weren’t even alive at the same time. I understand why the author did this, to establish the fact that there is no one “correct” history of events, there are only interpretations based on which facts one chooses to include. It is not a bad thing to remind readers of, but the way it is handled, with the clunky dialog, was artificial and distracting. I didn’t want to skip over them, but I hurried through them as interesting in theory but uninteresting in implementation.
The book’s scope stretches from the 1400’s through the Second World War. McDougall is an excellent writer, and he keeps the narrative interesting. I enjoyed the book and put several of his other works on my reading list.
With hindsight, history seems to have a certain air of inevitability, but of course, things did not have to turn out the way they did. The Russians, coming down from Alaska, and the Spanish, coming up from South America, both claimed the west coast of North American, and either of them could have taken it, or split it between them. But the Pacific was a long way from Madrid and Moscow. The Spaniards were overextended and constantly at war, and the Russians were just beginning to reach out to the east in an attempt to open up trade routes to the Atlantic. Britain, which reached the area through their voyages of exploration, including by the indomitable James Cook, and later overland through Canada, had a weaker claim politically but a stronger one militarily. They could have taken and held the entire west coast of North America, and perhaps pushed down into Central and South America as well, but once again, the Pacific was peripheral to their main strategic objectives, and by the time they seriously considered it, it was easier to negotiate with the new American government than to fight another war a long way from home.
The author’s description of Hawaii is also interesting and informative. By the mid eighteen-hundreds it had become the reprovisioning and overwintering destination for whalers and merchant vessels of many nations. Its strategic location put it in play with countries that were by this time experts in suborning rulers. The local monarchy did not help their cause, as they were weak, corrupt, and violent. It was inevitable that one of the great powers would devour it, and eventually it was the Americans who did so, led by their plantation owners, citing the usual fig leaf of protecting their citizens.
By the time Hawaii was in play Japan had emerged as another contender for the islands. The story of their political emergence sheds light on subsequent events, such as the discrimination they faced in the United States. There is no excuse for the way they were treated, but their home government’s actions militated against them. The Japanese government assumed that all of their people in any foreign land were Fifth Columnists who were actively working to bring it under Japanese rule. Since they were open about this objective, it is not surprising that the other nations responded with hostility.
And now the part that doesn’t work. The flow of the story is repeatedly interrupted with invented conversations between characters who played a part in events, even though most of them never met, and in some cases weren’t even alive at the same time. I understand why the author did this, to establish the fact that there is no one “correct” history of events, there are only interpretations based on which facts one chooses to include. It is not a bad thing to remind readers of, but the way it is handled, with the clunky dialog, was artificial and distracting. I didn’t want to skip over them, but I hurried through them as interesting in theory but uninteresting in implementation.
The book’s scope stretches from the 1400’s through the Second World War. McDougall is an excellent writer, and he keeps the narrative interesting. I enjoyed the book and put several of his other works on my reading list.
May 26, 2025
The topic is interesting (empire building and competing empires in the North Pacific), and the author makes some good insights (the industrial era could be characterized by "internal combustion"--gas lines bursting and causing the 1906 San Francisco Fire and 1923 Tokyo Earthquake to be more deadly than prior comparable natural disasters, as well as the devastating effects of high explosives and fuel oil in naval vessels in WW1/2). Yet, McDougall seems very old-school in some of his frames of analysis; he seemingly fixates on some of the people who secured funding for Atlantic-Pacific US railroads, giving them all of the credit and glossing over the actual laborers who built the thing. It's just one example but I think McDougall is sometimes more fascinated with grand figures than social history, mass movements, economics, and the kinds of larger trends that necessarily drive the expansion of empires and societies, and therefore merits greater attention when discussing those larger-picture topics.
April 6, 2020
A geo-political history of the North Pacific theater, starting from Magellan and ending up shortly after the Korean war (as the title says). McDougall uses a framing sequence where he has an imaginary dialogue with several historical figures that impacted the history of the North Pacific including Seward, Saito, etc.
The book is an ambitious journey. It is not afraid to ask difficult questions, and the author understands the need for nuance. The framing sequence was a little bit clumsy at the beginning but grew into a useful tool. My biggest complaint was the hand drawn maps. I know the author meant well but they were more of a nuisance than a help.
The book is an ambitious journey. It is not afraid to ask difficult questions, and the author understands the need for nuance. The framing sequence was a little bit clumsy at the beginning but grew into a useful tool. My biggest complaint was the hand drawn maps. I know the author meant well but they were more of a nuisance than a help.
November 25, 2017
Great history book...but that is what McDougall does! A.
March 11, 2021
Can’t take the silliness, including the framing device, the cutesy tone, and the hand-drawn maps.
March 5, 2024
Very interesting how the Pacific Ocean played an important role in bringing countries together.
December 22, 2016
I spent my first 12 years of life in the Pacific Northwest, and thought I'd be reading another interesting history set on the sea and American frontier days.
Instead I feel that gaping holes in my knowledge of important, relevant, modern world history...holes which I did not really understand existed...have been filled in. I now view all of US history, and the last 200 years of world history, very differently.
Not only has McDougall presented a geopolitical based view of our current modern world, and how we got here, he also effectively and gracefully let we, the readers, understand that he knows it's just his viewpoint, that other viewpoints and interpretations are legitimate and worthy of consideration.
This book was written a couple decades back - but as I read this in the closing days of 2016, it carried for me personally a message of hope. Today I look around & see terrorism, radical Islam, apparent rise of totalitarian states, hopeless peoples around the world becoming refugees and migrants, and that bleak view includes seeing our own Mr Trump taking office as president. Enough to bring me to despair for our world.
But this book unexpected led me to understand we're simply in yet another transitional phase. Something else is rising, and our current world turmoil is simply the setting from which it will arise. The new world state might not be anything I would have envisioned - and probably won't be utopia - but change is coming, and it's not inevitably the collapse which I've been fearing.
This dose of perspective is welcome. Thank you Mr McDougall, I'll pick up a few more of your books.
Instead I feel that gaping holes in my knowledge of important, relevant, modern world history...holes which I did not really understand existed...have been filled in. I now view all of US history, and the last 200 years of world history, very differently.
Not only has McDougall presented a geopolitical based view of our current modern world, and how we got here, he also effectively and gracefully let we, the readers, understand that he knows it's just his viewpoint, that other viewpoints and interpretations are legitimate and worthy of consideration.
This book was written a couple decades back - but as I read this in the closing days of 2016, it carried for me personally a message of hope. Today I look around & see terrorism, radical Islam, apparent rise of totalitarian states, hopeless peoples around the world becoming refugees and migrants, and that bleak view includes seeing our own Mr Trump taking office as president. Enough to bring me to despair for our world.
But this book unexpected led me to understand we're simply in yet another transitional phase. Something else is rising, and our current world turmoil is simply the setting from which it will arise. The new world state might not be anything I would have envisioned - and probably won't be utopia - but change is coming, and it's not inevitably the collapse which I've been fearing.
This dose of perspective is welcome. Thank you Mr McDougall, I'll pick up a few more of your books.
June 11, 2013
A political history, as opposed to a social history, so lots and lots of battles, politicians, treaties…. I prefer more social history, but I found out I didn’t know that much about a lot of this. Like, why Japan became a military state and China didn’t make much of an impression at all in world history until recently. He gets bogged down in the 20th century, which might be expected--there’s more information for a historian and it’s more relevant to the reader, especially WWII and Korea. Too much detail for my taste, but a lot of good background. The different "characters" putting in their two cents (Seward, etc.) didn't really work.
January 26, 2013
FAntastic, though long book. It took me six weeks to get through it--but they were fascinating and interesting weeks.
I read it while we lived in Hawai'i and it touched on so many places where I have lived around the Pacific Ocean. Fascinating research, I learned things I'd never heard of before.
I thought the premise was curious, a round table of scholars from different eras, but all so very interesting.
My historian father and my son all loved this one. REcommended
I read it while we lived in Hawai'i and it touched on so many places where I have lived around the Pacific Ocean. Fascinating research, I learned things I'd never heard of before.
I thought the premise was curious, a round table of scholars from different eras, but all so very interesting.
My historian father and my son all loved this one. REcommended
August 6, 2015
Series of vignettes on key events that shaped the conflict in the North Pacific over a 400 year period. The short vignettes broken up by a series of imaginary discussions between the author and the key players representing each of the powers. A bit hokey at first, but eventually effective in understanding the motives of the great powers.
July 30, 2014
Great big picture history. Format will be controversial, but it worked for me.
August 10, 2017
One of my most favorite books
November 13, 2016
Panoramic hist of No. Pacific
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