I will say however, that what Dolan declares to be the book's key argument - that the USSR's assault on Japanese occupied Manchuria (or, as the Co-Prosperity Sphere imperialists re-named it, Manchukuo) was more significant to Tokyo's surrender than the two atomic bomb detonations - has what I'll call the ring of truth.
There are several facts about this period practically all American historians agree on which have always stuck me as quite significant even though they're usually just mentioned in passing, like background effects.
Facts such as:
* Although driven from most of their imperial possessions by the American offensive, Japan still commanded a formidable military machine that could have been used in a devastating guerilla war against US invasion
* Curtis LeMay's B29s were dropping many tons of incindenary bombs on Japanese targets. Even without atomics massive devastation was already being visited on Japan and Japan was managing, on a knife's edge, to maintain its command and control infrastructure.
* Japanese forces in Manchuria were quite numerous and well equipped. This was a reserve the militarists counted on for diverting American attention and shoring up a counter-offensive to the inevitable final American ground attack on the home islands.
* Japanese militarists invented the term *gyokusai* (jewel smashed) and rallying cries: Ichioku Tokko ("The 100 million as a Special Attack Force" - aka Kamikaze or shimpu) and Ichioku Gyokusai ("the 100 million dying as a lovely gem") to instill within the populace the idea that mass suicide in the cause of repelling the enemy was the way Dai Nippon was going to check out of existence.
Now, when you place all these facts (and, no doubt, several others I'm leaving out) back into the super-heated context of 1945 the standard story that two atomic bomb droppings - and those two bombs alone - were the necessary and sufficient cause of Japan's surrender begins to weaken considerably.
And, as we know, it's common in the US to minimize the Soviet Union's participation in the war to a supporting player role.
But, I'll have to read the Prof. Hasegawa's book to have a better sense.
.d.
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