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The Pacific

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The Pacific

(62 customer reviews)

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ISBN13: 9780451230232
Condition: New
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Description

In this companion to the HBO(r) miniseries-executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman-Hugh Ambrose reveals the intertwined odysseys of four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy carrier pilot during World War II.

Between America's retreat from China in late November 1941 and the moment General MacArthur's airplane touched down on the Japanese mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance fought the key battles of the war against Japan. From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home.

In The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of the five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To deepen the story revealed in the miniseries and go beyond it, the book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as The Pacific and the brave men who fought. Some considered war a profession, others enlisted as citizen soldiers. Each man served in a different part of the war, but their respective duties required every ounce of their courage and their strength to defeat an enemy who preferred suicide to surrender. The medals for valor which were pinned on three of them came at a shocking price-a price paid in full by all.

Product Details

Author:	Hugh Ambrose
Hardcover:	512 pages
Publisher:	NAL Hardcover
Publication Date:	March 02, 2010
Language:	English
ISBN:	045123023X
Package Length:	9.1 inches
Package Width:	6.1 inches
Package Height:	1.8 inches
Package Weight:	1.8 pounds
Average Customer Rating:	based on 62 reviews

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 3.0

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disappointing Jul 20, 2010
OK book but very disappointing vs the high quality of the series. Great books on war usually either show: 1. the life of the warrior on the ground, or 2. The battles at some kind of tactical level, or 3. the higher level political, economic and scoial drivers of decisions and strategy.

This books managed to avoid all three aspects of the pacific campaign. It seemed to focus most on the events of the indivdual warrior, but whitewashed the gritty reality of the war. This is especially surprising given how relaism of HBO's series, THE PACIFIC.

Read Sledge's "with the Old Breed" or even better, Leckie's "Helmet for My Pillow" to get a REAL sense of what warriors faced on the ground.

Good transaction Jul 15, 2010
I bought this product as a gift. I didn't see it, so I can't comment on the quality, but I can say that it did arrive and close to on time.

Workman-like Jul 07, 2010
I picked this book up on whim, to fill the hours of a long plane ride, mostly because of my admiration of the HBO series Band of Brothers; I had read that the new HBO Spielberg-Hanks production The Pacific was also excellent, but I do not have access to HBO and was waiting for the series to be published in blue-ray. So I thought, the book Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, upon which the HBO series was based, was very good, so why not just read the Pacific in anticipation of that TV series?

Why not indeed. The book was average; it was reasonably detailed, and written after the style of Stephen Ambrose (Hugh's father), but lacked of the immediacy and dramatic punch that the situations often called for. If you have never read any accounts of the U.S. conflict in the Pacific, then don't start here. A better account might be Guadalcanal Diaryor perhaps Strong Men Armed: The United States Marines Against Japan.

All in all, it generally doesn't pay to read a book based on a movie, as this one was; it usually works the other way around (as with The Band of Brothers.) Now the blue-ray version of the The Pacific HBO Miniseries] is out, so I have that to look forward to!

0 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Learned A Lot Jul 04, 2010
I don't recall learning much about the Pacific War in WW II when I was in school. I'd heard of Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, but didn't know a lot of detail. I don't recall every hearing anything about Cape Gloucester or Peleliu, etc.

I have found this book to be very interesting and enlightening. I like the format of following particular men simultaneously instead of telling the whole story of one and then start over from 1941 with each subsequent man. I think this book gives me a really good over view of the Pacific War, and I can go back, now, to specific battles or people, like Eugene Sledge or R.V. Burgin, for even more detail.

0 of 2 found the following review helpful:

Recollections of A Marine Jun 28, 2010
As the son of a Marine who served on Guadalcanal in 1942, I had an unusual childhood. The memories all came flooding back to me as the HBO program, The Pacific, came to its conclusion this week. Every scene in the ten hour series I had already heard about around campfires, at veteran's reunions, or in officers clubs around the world. At five, I learned how to open a coconut by tapping around the three eyes with a bayonet. At ten I could shinny up a palm tree with a belt. I learned that you can shoot down a zero by leading by four hands and aiming high. A tank can be disabled by ramming a log in its tracks. There was the survival training; practicing how to find water in the desert, setting a snare trap for food, and starting a fire with flint and steel. All the sniper training was fun, but was fortunately never put to use. But, I can still thrill the kids by hitting a quarter taped to a tree 50 feet away with a Winchester 30-30. We outfitted ourselves with surplus WWII equipment from the "Supply Sergeant" for camping trips, and ate left over C-rations. Perhaps it was his explanation of how to make hooch out of canned peaches that led to a degree in biochemistry for me. In the end, I had my own Marine career as a pilot in Desert Storm. There you learn the true meaning of "gung ho." At 58, I stay in boot camp shape, which means hiking 20 miles a day for three days over rough terrain with a 60 pound pack. I know, because I did it last summer. Watching the series, I was reminded how feeble and meaningless my profession is, toiling all year just to create a spreadsheet with 12 numbers, and how the men of seven decades ago were made of sterner stuff. Buying a dip on a bad day just doesn't equate to "take out that machine gun."