By Kevin Seabrooke
Author Mark Stille bemoans the “continuing flood of Pearl Harbor books [that] focus on the failure to avoid conflict in the months before the attack or on the deeply flawed concept that ‘Washington’ conspired to let the Japanese take the first shots of the war while not informing the commanders at Pearl Harbor what was coming.”
Though Stille admits parts of the Japanese plan had merit, the idea of tactical Japanese brilliance holds such appeal is that “such a narrative is much more palatable than to point out that American unpreparedness allowed a flawed plan, executed in a mediocre manner, to inflict heavy losses”
Successfully clearing out the confusion and mythology that has entrenched itself around the event and producing what will surely be a definitive resource on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stille has produced a detailed and encyclopedic study of the Japanese mindset in the early part of the 20th century—incorporating seemingly every possible aspect of this epic event militarily, politically, geographically, culturally, psychologically.
Pearl Harbor: Japan’s Greatest Disaster (Mark Stille, Osprey/Bloomsbury Publishing, 368pp., 16-pages b.w photos, appendices, Nov. 4, 2025 $35 HC)
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