Short Synopsis
War Without Mercy has been hailed by the New York Times as “one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States.” In this monumental history, professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War: race.

Full Synopsis
War Without Mercy has been hailed by the New York Times as “one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States.” In this monumental history, professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War—race—while writing what John Toland has called “a landmark book . . . a powerful, moving, and evenhanded history that is sorely needed in both America and Japan.”

Drawing on American and Japanese songs, slogans, cartoons, propaganda films, secret reports, and a wealth of other documents of the time, Dower opens up a whole new way of looking at that bitter struggle of four and a half decades ago and its ramifications in our lives today. As Edwin O. Reischauer, former ambassador to Japan, has pointed out, this book offers “a lesson that the postwar generations need most . . . with eloquence, crushing detail, and power.”

"One of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States." ---New York Times

"A fresh and challenging insight into the Pacific phase of World War II . . . The book should enjoy the widest of audiences, from the general reader to the most demanding specialist." ---Library Journal

"Those concerned with the seductive power and universal influence of racism in the 20th century will find this landmark study absorbing and essential." ---Publishers Weekly

"Belongs in every general library . . . should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the trade wars that have mercifully replaced the killing fields in the Pacific." ---The Boston Globe