Pearl Harbor - The Day of Ifamy

This slim but informative and visually attractive overview-summary of that horrible day in December 1941 is just one volume in the Praeger Illustrated Military History series, which will eventually include more than 100 titles; the first “batch” comprises 34 volumes covering battles in World War I and World War II. Subsequent volumes will include coverage of the American Civil War, the ancient world, and the Napoleonic Wars. The format will be the same in each volume: cogent discussion of commanders, makeup of the opposing forces, actual maneuvers on the battlefield, results, and the battlefield as it looks today; the target audience for each volume is the general reader who wants basic information on consequential battles throughout history. The entire series would, of course, make a marvelously comprehensive addition to a public or school library’s history collection, but the librarian may find that a more realistic approach would be to order the volumes most relevant to one’s specific collection and readership needs–and, certainly, the individual volumes can either stand alone or alongside a few select series mates.December 7, 1941 was one of the single most decisive days of World War II - the day that brought the USA into the fight. Six Japanese aircraft carriers disgorged their full complements in two waves on the superior US Pacific Fleet as it lay slumbering in Pearl Harbor. Depending on opposing viewpoints, the attack was either a brilliant maneuver of audacious strategy, or a piece of unparalleled villainy and deception by a supposedly friendly power. This revised edition, containing the latest research on the events of December 7, 1941, reveals several previously unknown aspects of the attack and dispels key myths that have been built up around the fateful day - a day, Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, that would “live in infamy”.