Eighty-two years ago, with an audacious attack on U.S. forces stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese Empire marked the beginning of its end. Even the architect of the stunningly effective strike, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, was pessimistic about the prospects for reversing Japanese fortunes that already seemed to be spiraling out of control in World War II. Now, an angry America was pulled into the conflict.

In the latest installment of the Library’s Turning Points series in partnership with the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, military historian Benjamin Schneider explores the roots of what turned out to be a final, desperate gamble by Japan – and a critical juncture of the war. The U.S. ended the fighting four years later, decimating two Japanese cities with atomic bombs, and occupying Allied forces went on to enact wide military, political, economic, and social reforms.

On the ashes of old Japan, a new Japan was built.

Schneider is an assistant professor in the Department of Military History at the Command and General Staff College. Holder of a Ph.D. from George Mason University, he has held fellowships with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, the Harry F. Guggenheim Foundation, and the U.S. Naval War College. His research has appeared in the Journal of Contemporary History and War in History, and he is currently working on a book tentatively titled To Hate and Kill: American War Crimes and the Failure of Military Justice in the Second World War.

His presentation is livestreamed at youtube.com/kclibrary (for which no RSVP is necessary).