At the war’s end, the United States possessed the world’s fourth-largest empire, accounted for more than half the world’s manufacturing production, and had atom bombs. Why not conquer the globe? But of course, that’s not what happened. Not even close. Instead, the United States and its allies did something highly unusual: they won a war and gave up

It was partly the faith of the Japanese in Emperor Hirohito’s divinity that convinced Truman to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima

The event familiarly known as “Pearl Harbor” was in fact an all-out lightning strike on U.S. and British holdings throughout the Pacific. On a single day, the Japanese attacked the U.S. territories of Hawai‘i, the Philippines, Guam, Midway Island, and Wake Island. They also attacked the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and they