“Rising Sun Victorious: The Alternative History of How the Japanese Won the Pacific War”, edited by Peter G. Tsouras

256 pages, Greenhill Books, ISBN-13: 978-185367446

The game of “What If?” must be every historian’s favorite pastime and a great way to show off one’s knowledge and erudition to those ants one must associate with, and Greenhill Books’, with their “Alternate Decisions” series, allows them – professional and armchair alike – to indulge in this guilty pleasure to their heart’s content. Rising Sun Victorious: The Alternative History of How the Japanese Won the Pacific War is just one in this series. The overriding theme of the book (and the series, for that matter) is that, with very few exceptions, while an Allied victory was inevitable once the American manufacturing juggernaut was fully mobilized, there were several points, even late in the war, where a key victory for the Japanese could have made it so difficult to stop them that the Allies might have accepted less than total surrender and the Japanese might have been able to force a peace treaty that would have consolidated their gains. Ten leading military historians ask these and other questions in this fascinating book, and the war with Japan was rife with difficult choices and battles that could have gone either way. These fact-based alternate scenarios offer intriguing insights into what might have happened in the Pacific during World War II, and what the consequences would have been for America:

• Hokushin: The Second Russo-Japanese War by Peter G. Tsouras 
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Plan Orange Disaster by Wade G. Dudley 
• Pearl Harbor: Irredeemable Defeat by Frank Shirer 
• Coral and Purple: The Lost Advantage by James Arnold 
• Nagumo’s Luck: The Battles of Midway and California by Forrest R. Lindsey 
• Samurai Down Under: The Japanese Invasion of Australia by John H. Gill 
• The Japanese Raj: The Conquest of India by David C. Isby 
• Guadalcanal: The Broken Shoestring by John Burtt 
• There Are Such Things as Miracles: Halsey and Kurita at Leyte Gulf by Christopher J. Anderson 
• Victory Rides the Wind: The Kamikaze Prevents Defeat at Kyūshū by Dennis Giangreco

Although most or all of the chapters end with a short overview/explanation of where the actual events and the stories diverge, it would have been nice to know that while reading. This became more of an issue because of the numerous “citations” used by the author, which appear to have been used to make the book feel like an historically cited essay. However, as a casual reader with a good knowledge of WWII in the Pacific (but certainly not at historian level), they simply confused me even more as some, or even most, of them appeared to be either attempts at humor or fake citations to imagined books written about the parallel chain of events (I managed to catch the Jack Ryan/Tom Clancy reference in one, as an example, but I’m sure several others went right over my head). For all that, I still liked it, and it just goes to show how alternative histories like this and others can show how, in war, victory can be held hostage to seemingly insignificant incidents – chance events, opportunities seized or cast aside – that can derail the most brilliant military strategies and change the course of history.

“Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485”, by John Julius Norwich

432 pages, Scribner, ISBN-13: 978-0743200318

There can be no doubt about it: William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was one of the – if not THE – greatest playwrights and authors of the English language (as for all you Oxfordians, spare me: Edward de Vere was just a 16^th Century nobleman and nothing more. Quit it). As an historian, however, he was shit; as the late John Julius Norwich makes clear in Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485, the Bard gets so many, many, MANY facts and dates and details wrong in his history plays that, would they ever to be graded by a proper historian, he no doubt would be sent back several grades for remedial education. Or, perhaps, we should lay the blame at the feet of Raphael Holinshed, the author of Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland and Shakespeare’s go-to source for so many of his British history plays and, thus, for all of those historical inaccuracies. Ah, well: read the plays for their poetry, their verve and their action, and take their accuracy with a grain of salt – or, I should say, several tablespoons worth of salt. Norwich has long been one of my favorite popular historians and have always found his histories among the best-written and informative works in the field. With Shakespeare’s Kings he endeavored to compare several of Shakespeare’s “History Plays” with the historical record of the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses, those plays being:

• The Raigne of King Edward the Third 
• The Life and Death of King Richard the Second
• The First part of King Henry the Fourth 
• The Second part of King Henry the Fourth 
• History of Henry V 
• The first Part of Henry the Sixth 
• The second Part of Henry the Sixth 
• The third Part of Henry the Sixth 
• The Tragedy of King Richard III

The most interesting inclusion here is that of Edward III, a play that may or may not have been written in whole or in part by Shakespeare. While Norwich clearly knows both his history and his Shakespeare, this process does not lend itself to a much greater understanding of either Shakespeare or the period than one could obtain elsewhere. The biggest problem with the book is one of focus: is the comparison to be made with Shakespeare’s contemporary sources, or is it to be made with findings of modern scholarship on the period? Norwich never seems to make up his mind, and the result is an often maddeningly uneven book. Ultimately, Norwich seems to conclude that Shakespeare was rather loyal to the broad outlines of history, but that the Bard took many historical liberties as well which should come as a surprise to nobody, seeing as authors before and since continue to do the same damn thing. And so, rather than historical figures, Shakespeare’s Kings become archetypes, filled with virtues and flaws: Edward III is a womanizer; Richard II is an ignoramus; Henry IV a guilt-ridden usurper; Henry V an ideal heroic-king; Henry VI a pious fool; and Richard III is the black-hearted villain. Thus, Norwich’s conclusions about the period of history under examination are also rather modest, at best, while Shakespeare’s Kings shall live on for as long as English is spoken.

“The Mammoth Book of the Beatles”, edited by Sean Egan

512 pages, Running Press, ISBN-13: 978-0762436279

For anyone unfamiliar with the “Mammoth” series of books, they go the way back to 1984 in their current incarnations (I found The Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts and Mysteries from 1936, then…nothin’), and are a kind of all-in-one hodgepodge of stuff on a particular subject: stories, articles, lists, ruminations on Science Fiction, Haunted House Stories, Women Who Kill…and The Beatles, as in The Mammoth Book of the Beatles, edited by Sean Egan, a freelance journalist, author and editor who writes about arts, entertainment and sport. This Mammoth is no different, containing as it does several contemporary accounts, articles and interviews – yeah, yeah, yeah Maureen Cleave’s “Beatles Bigger than Christ” article is in there; shut up – as well as more current memoirs and reassessments of the most wildly popular band in America and, thus, the world.

I, for one, liked it, but only as a kind of attachment to other, superior Beatles books (like, oh I don’t know, Philip Norman’s Shout! The True Story of the Beatles, reviewed on November 15^th, 2017), for as a stand-alone work it betrays its hit-or-miss nature with the differing quality of the works within. The original articles are interesting, especially those written at the time of Beatlemania, both for and against (did you know that not everyone loved The Beatles? Cretins). And while Egan the writer is good and his musical ear mostly sound, I was perplexed by some of his declarations from on high, like how I Want Hold Your Hand was “simply not very good”, or that Paperback Writer was a “catch-up enterprise”, or that Strawberry Fields Forever was “good but not great” and that Penny Lane was likewise “not that great”, how All You Need Is Love was a “piece of hack work”, and how Yer Blues was “the only blues released by The Beatles during their existence”. I mean, really, all of that is bullshit; I can only think that, in a fit of contrariness, he wanted to document he was a legit independent-minded critic going his own way. Whatever. Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane are the greatest one-two punch in popular music. Ever.

But it’s not all bad as, for instance, when Egan describes John and Paul harmonizing on One After 909 he states that “when (they) swing together into a ‘Weeell...’ halfway through the number as seamlessly and brotherly as an Everlys joint vocal, it’s enough to bring tears to the eyes, a reminder of the golden days of a partnership once so harmonious and which begat so much pleasure for so many millions and is about to disappear into history”. That’s gold, man! Gold! So Egan has a soul, after all (oh, and his critiques of the three Anthology albums were spot on, so there’s that, too.). Like I said, this book works best as an addition to other, better Beatles books, rather than as a stand-alone work; a kind of specialty encyclopedia to be referenced and enjoyed at random. A nice addition to any Beatlephile’s collection, just so long as it’s not the only book you got.