Hitler’s American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and the German March to Global War

As we prepare to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, it remains etched in the public memory as the moment that ended America’s isolationism and led inevitably to the Axis defeat. In fact, as Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman’s new book Hitler’s American Gamble. Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War shows, the Japanese assault initially did nothing of the sort. Across the world, the “day of infamy” brought uncertainty rather than clarity, plunging America into a new, separate war in the Pacific and threatening to leave Britain and the Soviet Union at the mercy of Hitler’s Germany. Hitler’s American Gamble shows that the five days from December 7 – 11 were the most exciting and consequential of early 20th century diplomatic history. It provides hour-by-hour, often minute-by-minute, accounts of the worldwide scramble to assess the impact of and response to Pearl Harbor. The authors show that the attack was not the turning point of World War II; they argue instead th