The Pacific - Hugh Ambrose

The Pacific

By Hugh Ambrose

  • Release Date: 2010-03-02
  • Genre: History
4 Score: 4 (From 285 Ratings)

Description

The New York Times bestselling official companion book to the Emmy® Award-winning HBO® miniseries.

Look for The Pacific miniseries, now available to stream on Netflix!

Between America's retreat from China in late November 1941 and the moment General MacArthur's airplane touched down on the Japanese mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance fought the key battles of the war against Japan. From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home.

In The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To deepen the story revealed in the HBO® miniseries and go beyond it, the book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as the Pacific and the brave men who fought.

Reviews

  • It's better than the mini series

    5
    By Levings
    One of my favorite military books. The mini series missed many of the first account stories that are in this book but that's expected. If not the mini series would of been 20-30 hours long. I have this book in hard back.
  • Difficult to Follow

    2
    By Annie-USA
    The book is interesting, but very difficult to follow. The book is structured poorly, but mostly, the writing is awful. You often have to repeat a section 2-3 times because the sentence just doesn't make sense. He randomly adds asides that, while sometimes interesting, are irrelevant, distract from the point, and detract from the story. As I mentioned, the other problem is that the story is poorly structured. He has multiple plot lines going on which he switches between often rather randomly. This technique is often used to enhance a story, but not here. He focuses on a few of the stories, but lets others sit too long, so you have to remember what is happening and who the characters are. This style makes it hard to invest in the book, which is otherwise filled with very interesting stories. I get what he was trying to do, it just didn't work.
  • To El Booko

    5
    By 323tacoman
    It was not copied. Eugene Sledge the author of "with the old breed" was interviewed and helped with this book along with Robert Leckie "Pillow for my helmet."
  • Copied

    3
    By El booko
    These peopled a book called with the old breed it's like 20 years old
  • Not the iBook experience I expected

    3
    By Bluto87
    While the book reads well and was interesting, I didn't realize this book is a companion to the HBO miniseries... Definitely not as good as "Band of Brothers". The big criticism is the lack of pictures and maps that exist in the print version. Why buy the iBook version only to get cheated on the content? This is not the iPad/iBook experience I was led to to expect from Apple and the affiliated publishers.
  • Historical Accuracy

    5
    By mlfoster
    Gave it 5 stars for accuracy and authors careful reference to documentation if you care to check. Ambrose and his father apparently spent years putting this together and I don't know what came first, the HBO series or the book manuscript - guessing the book as a lot of the series had obvious drama added, which was ok because the guys who did it took painstaking care to be accurate. They seem to care about our fathers. As for this book, at the end I was left with a burning desire to read others, especially those written by characters in the book. Personally, I found it so descriptive that I felt I had watched a movie. I must admit that I moved quickly through some of the "set-up" portions to get back to the action. Because, as another reviewer put it, ther author is not polished. Overall, a great book that I have given as gifts to others so they know what our fathers endured.
  • Had Had Ambrose

    3
    By Toad1376
    This book was OK but not great. Hugh is not a polished writer. It seems that the publisher needed a book to go alone with the movie just to make money. The reason I refer to Hugh as "Had Had" is because he put those words together dozens of times throughout the book, which shows a bit of his writing flaws. I recommend the other books who this book and the movie are about. They all seemed to write their own stories which were were far more detailed and captivating.
  • Better than series

    5
    By SixxPack
    This book is what I expected the HBO series to be....which is much closer to the action of Band of Brothers. Definitely enjoyed the inclusion of the Battle of Midway. Must read as companion piece to series!
  • Confused

    2
    By MTigers214
    I am a huge fan of his father, but he is not his father. This book is all over the map. It wants to tell you a story of the entire Pacific Theatre but in the process of being complete, loses the nuances and details of a story. It jumps around so much that I rarely feel if I understood each character. At the end of Band of Brothers (I compare because I think this wants to be the Pacific Theater version) I felt I knew each character as a person and understood their demons, strengths, and personal experiences of the war. With this book, not so much, by the end I was still trying to figure out who was who. Further the writing just isn't that goos. I read and re-read sentences and was uncertain of his point or what he was trying to convey. In short there are far better books on the battles of the pacific. As an aside - the miniseries (although 4 episodes in) fails every worse than the book in my opinion.

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