Beyond Pearl Harbor

Beth Bailey is Foundation Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas, and is the author most recently of America’s Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force.David Farber is Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas, and the author of The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism.

Initial American reaction to the Pearl Harbor attack emphasized surprise and the failure of military intelligence. Pearl Harbor has become a symbol of American national unity in the face of external threat. The Japanese see the attack as the beginning of the end, the inescapable path toward atomic destruction and a new world order. Beyond Pearl Harbor reveals a world of different understandings beyond these. Chinese, Indonesian, Filipino, Australian, and transnational understandings point to a clash of empires rather than a binary national conflict. The authors bring to the foreground long-effaced narratives and suggest a much needed postcolonial perspective." - Michael Myers, author of The Pacific War and Contingent Victory: Why Japanese Defeat Was Not Inevitable"Bailey and Farber have gathered a collection of insightful, original essays that deepen and broaden our understanding of the impact of the Japanese attacks on December 7, 1941. Standard interpretations focus almost exclusively on the destruction at Pearl Harbor. Collectively these essays challenge that narrative and offer a refreshing new perspective that will change forever the way future historians think about that infamous day. This is a bold, imaginative, and absolutely essential book." - Steven M. Gillon, author of Pearl Harbor: FDR Leads the Nation into War

• Introduction: December 7/8, 1941, Beth Bailey and David FarberPrologue, Beth Bailey1. The Attack on Pearl Harbor . . . and Guam, Wake Island, Philippines, Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong: December 7/8, the Pacific World, American Empire, and the American Political Imaginary, Beth Bailey and David Farber2. "American Lives": Pearl Harbor and the War in the US Empire, David Immerwahr3. Japan and the Spirit of December 8," Jeremy A. Yellen4. Popular Japanese Responses to the Pearl Harbor Attack: December 8, 1941 to January 8, 1942, Samuel Hideo Yamashita5. Identities and Alliances: China's Place in the World after Pearl Harbor, 1941-1945, Rana Mitter6. Worldly Medicine in Wartime China: An Exploration of Pearl Harbor's Unintended Consequences, Nicole Elizabeth Barne7. Pearl Harbor and the Asian Cultural Turn, Ethan Mark8. The Philippines and the Politics of Anticipation, Christopher Capozzola9. Pearl Harbor and Australia's War in the Pacific, Kate Darian-Smith10. Tolerance, Reconciliation, and Alliance of Hope: Pearl Harbor Narrativesin Japan, Yujin YaguchiNotes on ContributorsIndex