$24.49
Author: Casey Steven
Brand: Oxford University Press
Number Of Pages: 408
Details: Product Description
The definitive history of American war reporting in the Pacific theater of World War II, from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After almost two years slogging with infantrymen through North Africa, Italy, and France, Ernie Pyle immediately realized he was ill-prepared for covering the Pacific War. As Pyle and other war correspondents discovered, the climate, the logistics, and the sheer scope of the Pacific theater had no parallel in the war America was fighting in Europe.
From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The War Beat, Pacific provides the first comprehensive account of how a group of highly courageous correspondents covered America’s war against Japan, what they witnessed, what they were allowed to publish, and how their reports shaped the home front’s perception of some of the most pivotal battles in American military history. In a dramatic and fast-paced narrative based on a wealth of previously untapped primary sources, Casey takes us from MacArthur’s doomed defense on the Philippines and the navy’s overly strict censorship policy at the time of Midway, through the bloody battles on Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Tarawa, Saipan, Leyte and Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, detailing the cooperation, as well as conflict, between the media and the military, as they grappled with the enduring problem of limiting a free press during a period of extreme crisis.
The War Beat, Pacific shows how foreign correspondents ran up against practical challenges and risked their lives to get stories in a theater that was far more challenging than the war against Nazi Germany, while the US government blocked news of the war against Japan and tried to focus the home front on Hitler and his atrocities.
Review
“[A] brilliant book on American reporters covering World War II in the Pacific….Casey’s powerful and readable account offers an important addition to the historiography of the Pacific theater…. Casey concludes that despite the difficulties that reporters faced in the Pacific, they played an invaluable role in bridging the gap between what was occurring on the battlefield and what was understood on the home front. Reporters developed working relationships with different military commanders and public relations officers while overcoming harsh environmental conditions, dangerous and sometimes deadly combat situations, and unreliable transportation.” — David L. Snead, Journal of Military History
“Casey has produced a highly useful companion volume to his earlier book The War Beat, Europe (2017), deserving of a place in any collection focusing on WWII or journalism.” — J.P. Sanson, CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8
“Shrewd and comprehensive…. The War Beat, Pacific is an impressive achievement. Media-military relations in the Pacific were, it shows us, a world of paradoxes and conundrums reflecting the competing agendas and institutional frictions within the military and between it and the media. Casey composes a lucid narrative out of disparate archival materials and secondary sources. While he captures the terror, misery, and frustration reporters felt in the Pacific, his eyes are on the bigger picture, the forces in both media and military that determined what the American public knew of the war and what it did not. Now the definitive account of US war reporting in the Pacific, The War Beat, Pacific promises to have a long shelf life.” — Richard Fine, Michigan War Studies Review
“Reporters assigned to cover the Pacific theater of WW II faced obstacles that were difficult to overcome. The Pacific War covered thousands of square miles, and much of it was fought by the navy. Reporters might be on a ship dozens or even a hundred miles from major battles trying to make sense of the progress by listening to comments and reports from pilots without seeing one moment of action. Moreover, they struggled with wording dispatches to their home offices in order to make it pas
Release Date: 03-05-2021
Package Dimensions: 33x242x692
