British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914-1941 - (Studies in Military and Strategic History) by A Best (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This is the first full-length study of the role played by British Intelligence in influencing policy towards Japan from the decline of the Alliance to the outbreak of the Pacific War. Using many previously classified records it describes how the image of Japan generated by Intelligence during this period led Britain to underestimate Japanese military capabilities in 1941. The book shows how this image was derived from a lack of adequate intelligence resources and racially driven assumptions about Japanese national characteristics.

Review Quotes

'This is a superb example of intelligence history.' - Peter Dennis, Australian Defence Force Academy, Journal of Military History

'This is an important work and it does much to enhance our understanding of the process that marked the decline of British power in Asia in the twentieth-century.' - Peter Lowe, University of Manchester, EHR

About the Author

ANTONY BEST is Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936-41 and a number of scholarly articles on Anglo-Japanese relations in the 1930s.