“[The Rising Sun] is quite possibly the most readable, yet informative account of the Pacific war.”—Chicago Sun-Times This Pulitzer Prize–winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, “a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened—muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox.” In weaving together the historical facts and human drama leading up to and culminating in the war in the Pacific, Toland crafts a riveting and unbiased narrative history. In his Foreword, Toland says that if we are to draw any conclusion from The Rising Sun, it is “that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history.” “Unbelievably rich . . . readable and exciting . . .The best parts of [Toland’s] book are not the battle scenes but the intimate view he gives of the highest reaches of Tokyo politics.”—Newsweek

Originally published: Hitler & Japan / Johanna Menzel Meskill. New York: Atherton Press, 1966. With new introd.

Nazi Germany and Japan occupied huge areas at least for some period during World War II, and those territories became integral parts of their war economies. The book focuses on the policies of World War II aggressors in occupied countries. The unbalanced economic and financial relations were defined by administrative control, the implementation of institutions and a variety of military exploitation strategies. Plundering, looting and requisitions were frequent aggressive acts, but beyond these interventions by force, specific institutions were created to gain control over the occupied economies as a whole. An appropriate institutional setting was also crucial to give incentives to the companies in the occupied countries to produce munitions for the aggressors. The book explains the main fields of war exploitation (organisation and control, war financing and workforce recruitment). It substantiates these aspects in case studies of occupied countries and gives examples of the business policy of multinational companies under war conditions. The book also provides an account of differences and similarities of the two occupation systems. Economies under Occupation will interest researchers specialising in the history of economic thought as well as in economic theory and philosophy. It will also engage readers concerned with regional European and Japanese studies and imperial histories.