this pulitzer prizewinning history of world war ii chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the japanese empire from the invasion of manchuria and china to the atomic bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki told from the japanese perspective the rising sun is in the authors words a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind told as it happenedmuddled ennobling disgraceful frustrating full of paradoxin weaving together the historical facts and human drama leading up to and culminating in the war in the pacific toland crafts a riveting and unbiased narrative history in his foreword toland says that if we are to draw any conclusion from the rising sun it is that there are no simple lessons in history that it is human nature that repeats itself not history