On 7 December 1941, an armada of 354 Japanese warplanes supported by aircraft carriers, destroyers and midget submarines launched a surprise attack on the United States, killing 2,403 people and forcing America's entry into the Second World War. PEARL HARBOR: FROM INFAMY TO GREATNESS follows the sailors, soldiers, pilots, diplomats, admirals, generals, emperor and president as they engineer, fight and react to this stunningly dramatic moment in world history. In vivid prose Craig Nelson maps the road to war, beginning in 1914 with a young Franklin D. Roosevelt, the man who would become president, attending the laying of the keel of the USS Arizona at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He also traces Japan's leaders as they lurch into ultranationalist fascism, culminating in their insanely daring yet militarily brilliant scheme to terrify America with one of the boldest attacks ever waged. The result is a thrilling historical drama on the grandest scale. Nelson delivers all the terror, chaos, violence, tragedy and heroism of the attack in stunning detail, and offers surprising conclusions about the tragedy's unforeseen consequences that resonate even today.

Author Biography

Craig Nelson is the author of the New York Times bestseller Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon, as well as several previous books, including The Age of Radiance (a PEN America Literary Award finalist), The First Heroes, Thomas Paine (winner of the Henry Adams Prize) and Let's Get Lost (shortlisted for WHSmith's Book of the Year). His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, the New England Review, Popular Science, Reader's Digest and a host of other publications.