Tale of Two Japans
Ten Years to Pearl Harbor


By Audrey Sansbury Talks
June 2010
Book Guild
Distributed by Trans-Atlantic Publications
ISBN: 9781846244162
217 pages, Illustrated
$33.50 Paper original

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The true story of an English family's experience of living in Japan during the years that have been called in Japan kurai tanima<i/> or 'dark valley' - the dark valley that was to lead from Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September 1931 to the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Based for the most part on a wealth of unpublished sources - memories, letters, reports and diaries - this fascinating account shows the vast differences experienced by westerners living in Japan during those years: the charm and courtesy of 'old' Japan already under threat from the course on which the country's military leaders were set. For the writer, as a child, the move in 1941 from Japan was traumatic, as she lost her home, and from that time lived in a world where Japan was the enemy. So this is a tale of two Japans, of the peaceful Japan that she knew and loved, and of the military Japan that brought disaster on itself and on the world.

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