WWII books focusing on pacific

Greetings,
I am looking for a book or books (would really prefer a multi-volume set) that tells the history of the war in the pacific during WWII that is preferably not focused on the United States military. I want a "big picture" book that does more than recount the details of each battle.

>1 pmartin462:: A year or so ago I bought Hirohito's War by Francis Pike. It's still sitting on my TBR shelf so I can't comment on it but may be worth looking at. At just over 1000 pages it's quite a hefty volume and of course as the title suggests it's written fromthe Japanese viewpoint.

The Time-Life World War 2 set offers quite a few titles.

The Rising Sun
China-Burma-India
Island fighting
Return to the Philippines
etc.

The bibliographies are always full and fascinating.

Thanks.

Thanks.

I'd recommend Eagle Against The Sun for a good picture of the war in the Pacific, beginning with Pearl Harbor up to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Thanks. Already on my bookshelf.

While it violates your requirement for non-US, Blankets of Fire gives a good "big picture" account of the B-29 bombing campaign against Japan.

While Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway does focus on one battle, it is entirely focused on the Japanese point of view, and the conclusions that follow from that analysis have implications for the Japanese war effort well beyond that one battle. My review:

"Shattered Sword is one of the finest -- if not the finest -- works of military history I've ever read. It is no ordinary military history, but rather a work of military analysis. The book has a purpose and it is not only to provide a lucid account of the battle, though it does that well. This is a book that for the first time in the western literature makes full use of Japanese sources. The authors' research uncovered the fact that western dogma about the battle had long been thoroughly debunked by Japanese scholars, but none of that work was accessible except in Japanese. In view of this, the approach here is to look at the battle from the Japanese point of view, considering Japanese strategy and decision-making at each step. The goal is to set the record straight by confronted the prevailing dogmata, and correct the misconceptions. While the American performance and American command decisions are part of the story of Midway, these have been told elsewhere. Parshall and Tully rewrite the history of this crucial clash in a way that is not only convincing, but is intellectually gripping as well. The reader can now make sense of Japanese goals, missteps, and calculations. I found it thrilling."

Based on your description, John Costello's The Pacific War sounds like it might be the kind of big-picture, multi-national view you're looking for.

John Toland's The Rising Sun is a classic view of the war through the prism of Japanese politics and culture, and Akira Iriye's work, particularly Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945, is another interesting antidote to the US-centric trend in popular histories of the war.