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The reader also gets very little context as to why the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and what America as a whole thought of the event. Since most of the Japanese participants were later killed in the war, their views and perspectives are mostly absent. This gets old after a while and no longer packs much of a punch.
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Nearly every paragraph contains at least one irony or statement intended to shock the reader. Plus, the quotes used are usually the most fantastic sentence the person said in their interview with Lord so, in total, the story sounds more like a legend than history. While this provides for a number of "accounts," they are rather superficial. Most of the people's background and story are told in a single sentence or two. The characters aren't developed at all and less than 24 hours after finishing the book I can't remember a single person's name. Rather than present the forest, Lord offers only the trees-and lots of them. The first few chapters, especially, are real page turners while Lord flashes back and forth between what was happening in Hawaii and what was happening in Japan and on the high seas in the days and hours before the attack. In this respect, Lord does not disappoint. Lord has assembled hundreds of yarns into this work of "non-fiction." Originally published in 1957, this edition was published in time for the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack without any apparent changes or additions.Īn event that raised as many questions and was as "exciting" (if that term can be used for something that killed thousands) as Pearl Harbor was would be difficult to write about and not hold the reader's interest.