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Type of bind: Audio Cassette
Dewey Decimal Number: 900
EAN num: 9780942110425
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
ISBN number: 0942110420
Label: Highbridge Audio
Manufacturer: Highbridge Audio
Quantity: 2
Page Count: 540
Printing Date: January 01, 1991
Publishing house: Highbridge Audio
Sale Popularity Level: 3482849
Studio: Highbridge Audio
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Product Description:
Part One Of Three Parts
PEARL HARBOR: THE VERDICT OF HISTORY is the sequel to Prange's earlier book AT DAWN WE SLEPT. PEARL HARBOR sorts out the responsibility for the Pearl Harbor attack. It deals not with action, but with reaction. It is the definitive analysis of the acts, failures to act, and the mental attitudes that made the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor possible.
'A more important clue to explaining the Pearl Harbor disaster than even the most intriguing revelations about code breaking or espionage.' (Washington Post Book Review)
'Logically organized and clearly presented...a useful introduction and guide to the major arguments and areas of controversy.' (The New York Times)
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Rated by buyers 
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Rated by buyers -
Over the years, there has developed a "revisionist" group of historians who claimed FDR Knew in advance about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor and he did nothing to stop it. In this excellent book by Gordon Prange, this somewhat questionable viewpoint is thoroughly destroyed. One of the revisionists' claims is that the radio stations on the West Coast were able to track the Japanese fleet due to their radio signals. This is impossible, since the Japanese fleet NEVER broke radio silence, and, in fact, had their transmitters removed from thier radios all together. Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who led the attack, also said that "the force maintained the strictest radio silence throughout the cruise". Revisionists also believed, according to Prange, that if the Japanese task force would have been discovered, it would have turned back. Again, this is not true. The Japanese hoped to attain surprise, but if they were to have been discovered, they were prepared to fight all the way to Pearl Harbor to deliver their attack. What Prange attempts to achieve in this excellent book is who really was to blame? In this aspect, the War Department and the commanders, Kimmel and Short, are held responsible. Prange comes down hard on the War Department for failing to notify the commanders of the intercepted "bomb plot" message. This message, intercepted by "Magic", was transmitted to Japan by a Japanese spy. It broke Pearl Harbor into several sections, which, in effect, could be interpreted as a bombing grid. This information was not transmitted to Kimmel and Short, and could have proven invaluable. But the bulk of the blame appears to fall on Kimmel, Short, and the subordinate commanders. Kimmel and Short both grossly misinterpreted the "War Warning" message dated November 27, 1941, and sent to them by Washington. Short only alerted his troops against possible sabotage and maintained his training schedule. The War Department is also to blame here, because they failed to follow up to make sure Short understood the meaning of the message. Kimmel also failed to grasp the meaning of this message, and, unfortunately, communication between the army and navy was poor at best, so very little information was shared between the commands. One must also realize, and Prange makes excellent reference to this in the book, is that the Japanese placed tremendous amounts of time, thought, and training into this mission, and they must be credited with the sucess of the attack. America's belief of their huge superiority in both ships and personnel was totally destroyed. Prange also covers each of the resulting investigations fully and includes excellent testimony throughout the book. In summary, this is an excellent book about the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and does a good job of refuting the revisionists and acurately placing blame.
Rated by buyers 
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I'm a big fan of At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor and December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor, the very first two books in Gordon W. Prange's Pearl Harbor trilogy. "Verdict of History," in which he shifts his focus from "what happened" to "why it happened," however, is more troubling. Prange himself died before the publication of his trilogy. The work was finished by his two co-authors, Goldstein and Dillon, and so I'm tempted to hold them responsible for the things I find most disappointing in this volume.
Part of the problem is the title, which I hope Prange himself didn't have a hand in. As Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn sagely pointed out in Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Times, the verdict of *history* and the verdict of *historians* are two (often very different) things. I would hope a historian of Prange's skill would not be so presumptuous as to claim to speak for all history. The opinions of talented historians are valuable. But relatively few judgments can ever be final (Henry Clausen's Pearl Harbor book has this problem in spades).
The larger issue seems to have been the release, after Prange's death, of John Toland's Infamy which breathed new life into the so-called "revisionist" theory that Franklin Roosevelt knew of and/or deliberately provoked the attack. According to their introduction to this volume, Goldstein and Dillon deliberately expanded and refocused Prange's work in order to respond more thoroughly to the "revisionist anti-Roosevelt thesis," which they reject.
They concede that Roosevelt "might have been ill-advised" or insufficiently "dynamic" in his leadership. But their central thesis is the mainstream one that Pearl Harbor was due to sub-standard naval and military intelligence systems and failures by the on-scene commanders.
In the end, though, Prange is at pains to point out something that often is overlooked in the "who do we blame" debate: the magnitude of the Japanese achievement. Pearl Harbor was a massive strategic undertaking -- one the Imperial Navy executed nearly to perfection. Students of the attack do well to remember that attention rightly focuses on the Japanese side of the equation as much as on the American.
I've read a lot of Pearl Harbor history, and recommend Stinnett's recent Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, which I think adds some important information to the debate. But I readily admit I don't believe anyone has all the answers yet. Prange's seminal work (the sum of his three volumes) is an important part of the dialectic that presents arguments and interpretations and helps us get a clearer picture of what really led up to the Day of Infamy.
Rated by buyers 
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I approached this book thinking that it would yield insights into how the United States was so unprepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor. It seemed appropriate in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, to see if the United States had failed to learn from the past and condenmed itself to repeat it.
What I found between the covers of "Verdict of History" was a thick skulled and fatuous account that, in a nutshell, said "this stuff just happens, and no one is to blame". As anyone who read "The Valour of Ignorance" (Homer Lea), "Strategy", by Lidell hart, the writings of Thucydides (a successful ancient Greek General) or other books on military strategy and the nature of warfare realized, the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet was predictable -- and in fact was very first discussed in military and political circles as a likely event in 1905.
The author of "Verdict of History" impressed me only with his staggering and colossal stupidity: evidenced in the book by his complete lack of analytical skills, and his obtuse lakc of comprehension when it comes to strategy. In fact, I think the author is probably a candidate for most inept debator of the century: he asserts that Roosevelt's administration was not derelict in exercising its duty or responsibility to defend the United States, and then he provides hundreds of pages of text that indicates that they were (At Dawn, They Slept..and in the afternoon and evening as well, apparently). Mr. Prange seems to have done a great deal of research but learned absolutely nothing from it ... regrettably, that's par for the course with academic writers.
Throw this one into the rubbish can of history.
Rated by buyers -
I approached this book thinking that it would yield insights into how and why the United States was so poorly prepared for the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. It seemed appropriate in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, to see if the United States had failed to learn from the past and had thereby condenmed itself to a repeat.
What I found between the covers of "Verdict of History" was a thick skulled and fatuous account that, in a nutshell, said "this stuff just happens, and no one is to blame". As anyone who read "The Valour of Ignorance" (Homer Lea), "Strategy", by Lidell Hart, the writings of Thucydides (a successful ancient Greek General) or other books on military strategy and the nature of warfare realized, the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet was predictable -- and in fact was very first discussed in military and political circles as a likely event as early as 1905.
The author [...] asserts that Roosevelt's administration was not derelict in exercising its duty or responsibility to defend the United States, and then he provides hundreds of pages of text indicating that they were (At Dawn, They Slept ... and in the afternoon and evening as well, apparently). Mr. Prange seems to have done a great deal of research but learned absolutely nothing from it. Regrettably, that's par for the course with academic writers.
[...]
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