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From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States. By Sadao Asada. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2006. ISBN 1-55750-042-8. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xii, 385. $24.39.
One should take with a grain of salt some electronic reviews of Sadao Asada's latest volume. This book is not about the Japanese government, nor about Japanese society, the Army, or royal leadership, writ large. It is a wellresearched and well-written volume about the Japanese Navy and how it sought power. While some will lament the lack of a multifaceted examination beyond 1941, one takes such a view with great risks.
The book is a well-executed examination of the Japanese Navy from Alfred Thayer Mahan's first seapower study in 1890 to the attack upon the American naval base at...