Rain of Ruin

Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan

Richard Overy, Ph.D. (University of Exeter)

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English

Norton
04 March 2025

History; Asian history; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Second World War; Air forces & warfare

With the development of the B-29 “Superfortress” in summer 1944, strategic bombing, a central component of the Allied war effort against Germany, arrived in the Pacific theater. In 1945 Japan experienced the three most deadly bombing attacks of the war. The firebombing of Tokyo in March burned the city’s most densely populated sector, killed some 85,000 residents, and left more than one million homeless. The attack was part of a months-long campaign of incendiary bombing that destroyed almost two-thirds of Japan’s cities. The two atomic blasts in August killed hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, most of them civilians. The bombing brought a destabilizing devastation that, combined with a declaration of war by the Soviet Union, induced Japan, as they put it, to terminate the war.

Many at the time and since have credited American air power, and especially the two atomic bombs, with Japan’s surrender. But Richard Overy tells a different, more dimensional story. Drawing on his expertise on the war and its bombing campaigns, he delivers a precise recounting of these aerial attacks, and a balanced, informed assessment of how and why they occurred. Overy is astute on the Allied decision-making, and, notably, integrates the Japanese leadership as well. He ably navigates the dramatic endgame of the war, which featured factional infighting within the Japanese cabinet, a scramble by American officials to formulate an acceptable version of “unconditional surrender,” and the crucial role played by the emperor, Hirohito. The atomic bombing emerges as impactful but not decisive in this rich, multilayered history

By: Richard Overy Ph.D. (University of Exeter)
Imprint: Norton
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 218mm, Width: 147mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 343g
ISBN: 9781324105305
ISBN 10: 1324105305
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 04 March 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Richard Overy is the author of many outstanding histories of World War II, including Why the Allies Won and the best-selling Blood and Ruins, winner of the Society of Military History Distinguished Book Award. His study of Hitler and Stalin, The Dictators, won the Wolfson History Prize. He lives in England and Italy.