Unconditional, Marc Gallicchio
Unconditional, Marc Gallicchio
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Unconditional
The Japanese Surrender in World War II

Author: Marc Gallicchio

Narrator: Eric Michael Summerer

Unabridged: 9 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/25/2020

Synopsis

Signed on September 2, 1945 by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional." Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress, when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan.

Though this was the last time American forces would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued through the 1950s and 1960s—with the Korean and Vietnam Wars—when liberal and conservative views reversed, including over the definition of "peace with honor." The subject was revived during the ceremonies surrounding the fiftieth anniversary in 1995, and the Gulf and Iraq Wars, when the subjects of exit strategies and "accomplished missions" were debated. Marc Gallicchio reveals how and why the surrender in Tokyo Bay unfolded as it did and the principle figures behind it. Most importantly, Gallicchio reveals how the policy of unconditional surrender has shaped our memory and our understanding of World War II.

About Marc Gallicchio

Marc Gallicchio is professor of history at Villanova University and was a Fulbright visiting lecturer in Japan, 1998-1999 and 2004-2005. He is coauthor, with Waldo Heinrichs, of Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, which won the Bancroft Prize in History.

Reviews

Goodreads review by GrahamReads

Just finished: "Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II" By: Marc Gallucchio A thought provoking and game changing history of the Japanese surrender. According to documents the author found, the Japanese had considered surrendering as early as April 1945. While very subtle and working thr......more

Goodreads review by Socraticgadfly

Fascinating new look at the last months of the Pacific War, told from inside Washington, and how the policy of unconditional surrender was being politicized even before the war was over, and how some of the first politicization of the atomic bomb tied to this. It was mainly conservative Republicans,......more

Goodreads review by Steven

The death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April1945 vaulted the inexperienced Harry S. Truman into the Oval Office. As Vice-President Truman was kept in the dark by Roosevelt on many issues including the Manhattan Project which would later result in dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hi......more

Goodreads review by Mal

Three-quarters of a century after the end of World War II, FDR’s policy to demand unconditional surrender from Germany and Japan may seem simply logical. After all, in an era of total war, the only guarantee that either nation wouldn’t sufficiently recover to attack again was total Allied control ov......more

Goodreads review by Peter

President Harry Truman is a popular historical figure for presidential historians to write about (Gage 2022). The Historian Marc Gallichio’s book Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II is part of the current trend of books on President Truman. Gallichio’s book is focused on one of the......more

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