Towards the end of World War Two, Americans clamored for their troops to come home. Politics intruded upon military policy while a new and untested president struggled to strategize among a military command that was often mired in rivalry. The task of defeating the Japanese seemed nearly unsurmountable, even while plans to invade the home islands were being drawn. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall warned of the toll that "the agony of enduring battle" would likely take. General Douglas MacArthur clashed with Marshall and Admiral Nimitz over the most effective way to defeat the increasingly resilient Japanese combatants. In the midst of this division, the Army began a program of partial demobilization of troops in Europe, which depleted units at a time when they most needed experienced soldiers. In this context of military emergency, victory was salvaged by means of a horrific new weapon. As one Army staff officer admitted, "The capitulation of Hirohito saved our necks." Historians Waldo Heinrichs (a veteran of both theatres of war in World War II) and Marc Gallicchio bring to life the final year of World War Two in the Pacific right up to the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, evoking not only Japanese policies of desperate defense, but the sometimes rancorous debates on the home front. A gripping and provocative narrative that challenges the decision-making of U.S. leaders and delineates the consequences of prioritizing the European front. A masterly work of military history that evaluates the nearly insurmountable trials associated with waging global war and the sacrifices necessary to succeed. Waldo Heinrichs is Dwight E. Stanford Professor Emeritus at San Diego State University. He is the author of American Ambassador: Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the United States Diplomatic Tradition. Marc Gallicchio is a Professor of History at Villanova University. He is the author of The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895 - 1945.