Yomiuri journalists worked for 14 months investigating: "Who was responsible for starting the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, why they did so and why the nation kept fighting until many of its cities had been almost completely reduced to ashes."
The resulting book is a devastating critique of Japan's leadership between 1931 and 1945. "Japan misread the prevailing international situation in 1941 when it went to war against the United States." Japan failed to formulate realistically its war aims or an exit strategy.
"For (Hideki) Tojo and others, the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere through war with the United States and Britain was Japan's last resort to make China surrender."