Professor Dingman spins a compelling narrative of the accidental sinking of a Japanese merchant ship sailing under safe passage negotiated clandestinely by the U.S. and Japan during the last part of WWII. Much wider implications include causal factors relating to the whole issue of the nature of the war in the Pacific as presented in such works as Craig Cameron's American Samurai, John Dower's War without Mercy, Gerald Linderman's World within War and the rest of the literature on racism and predatory warfare. Beyond the nature of war, however, Dr Dingman deals with the myths that linger, especially the way societies recreate their memories of war. Almost as soon as the sinking occurred the creation of different, divergent public memories of the incident in both countries would spoil the well to such an extent that a rift between private and public factions in both would allow a third party, China (PRC), to reap the benefits of salvage. Here the works on the creation of public myth, like Marling and Wetenhall's Iwo Jima, resonate. The multi-archival approach Dr Dingman can use because of his fluency in Japanese is employed at not only the highest levels, in the tradition of Ernest May, Akira Iriye, and Waldo Heinrichs, but also at the level of the common man employed by diplomatic historians like Michael Hunt who in his seminal The Making of a Special Relationship, explores popular culture as well. A gripping tale, heard to put down, this book has lessons for us not only about World War Two, but the lingering myths and malaise of Vietnam.

This book may be interesting, but this guy is a professor at the University of Southern California, and by far one of the WORST. Any students thinking of taking his class should THINK AGAIN.