War in the Pacific

Storm Approaching – 1931-1941

By Peter Harmsen
Published by Big Sky Publishing  LINK HERE TO BOOK
RRP $32.99 in paperback | ISBN 9781922615336

War in the Pacific, Storm Approaching 1931-1941 is the first in a trilogy of books by Peter Harmsen to be published in Australia.

In this first book, Harmsen, who worked as a foreign correspondent in East Asia for two decades as well as for Bloomberg, The Economist Intelligence Unit, and The Financial Times, demonstrates how Japan and China’s ancient enmity grew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries leading to increased tensions in the 1930s which exploded into conflict in 1937.

Against the backdrop of the increasing militarisation of Japan and its regional ambitions, he reveals the longstanding enmity between China and Japan and Japanese realisation that naval power would be important to its future military success.

He makes the point that US planning for war with Japan included an element of condescension towards the Japanese and their skills in battle.

Harmsen offers up a compelling account of the geopolitical factors that coalesced to bring about the war in the Pacific that it took a superpower to stop.

Books 2 and 3 in the series are set for release in 2022.