Forgive me if this is out of place, but I searched the Wiki and haven't found the type of book I'm looking for.
I've read several books on the WWII Naval War in the Pacific, including books on Midway, Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, a book on Guadalcanal, but they've all been specific. I'm looking for an overall book which might not go into as much detail about specific events, but goes over the entirety of the Pacific theater of operations, including the naval battles as well as the Marine island-hopping operations, the Army in the Philippines, and everything else.
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
It is actually a triology but Ian W Toll is who I would suggest his series of: Pacific Crucible, Conquering Tide, and Twilight of the Gods is an excellent overview of the American experience in the Pacific War.
It suffers if looking at the British and Commonwealth experience, or Mainland Asia, though they are not entirely absent, and even the native people's of the Central and South Pacific whose homes were suddenly caught up in war get deserved page time.
The Two Ocean War by Samuel Eliot Morrison, while it plainly also covers Atlantic naval operations, might be a good starting point. It is a distillation of his 16 volume set covering American naval operations in WW II.
On a quick flip through of my own copy, I think Williamson Murray and Alan Millett’s A War to be Won may be what you’re looking for. It covers the entire war, but it is an operational history- that is, it deals specifically in the military campaigns of the conflict. In this vein it addresses the political and economic aspects of the war where necessary but does not dwell on them, preferring to focus on the military operations involved in actually fighting the conflict. The chapters covering the Asia-Pacific War cover all aspects of it, from the CBI to the naval war to MacArthur’s South Pacific campaign to the Central Pacific Drive. The use of airpower’s role in the conflict is addressed as well. All in all I would recommend that for what you’re seeking.
If you have any additional questions please feel free to ask.
“Eagle Against the Sun” by Ronald H. Spector (1984) is dated, but still a great, accessible single volume work on the PTO.
The first volume of Richard B. Frank's Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War came out earlier this year. For a work that relies almost entirely on English-language sources and scholarship, I think it does a decent job in narrating the first half of the Second Sino-Japanese War and opening months of the Pacific War. The completed trilogy will provide the all-inclusive treatment that you're looking for, it seems.
Otherwise, I don't know of any books that adequately cover the entirety of the Asia-Pacific War, though I would still recommend S. C. M. Paine's The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949 as a good synthesis of events in continental Asia and also the edited volume The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 for its contributions from an international group of scholars.