Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire

WINNER OF THE HARRY S. TRUMAN BOOK AWARD • A deeply researched analysis of the last months of World War II and the fall of Japan

In a riveting narrative that includes information from declassified documents, acclaimed historian Richard B. Frank gives a scrupulously detailed explanation of the critical months leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb. Frank explains how American leaders learned in the summer of 1945 that their alternate strategy to end the war by invasion had been shatter...