The Pacific conflict changed the face of history, plunging the world into total war and heralding the ominous beginning of the atomic age. This Pulitzer Prize-winning history, told primarily from the Japanese viewpoint, traces the dramatic fortunes of the Empire of the Sun from the invasion of Manchuria to the dropping of the atomic bomb, demolishing many myths surrounding this catastrophic conflict. Why did the dawn air attack of Peal Harbour occur? Was war inevitable? Was the Emperor a puppet or a warmonger? And, finally, what inspired the barbaric actions of those who fought, and who speak here of the unspeakable - murder, cannibalism and desertion? The product of years of research and interviews with almost five hundred people, including President Truman and survivors of the horrors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is a definitive, monumental account.