دانلود کتاب The reluctant admiral : Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy (山本五十六)

This is a portrait both of an individual and of an organization. The individual is the Japanese admiral who, as architect of the Pearl Harbor raid and commander of the Combined Fleet throughout the first part of World War II, is one of the most widely known of Japanese wartime leaders. The organization is the Japanese Imperial Navy, whose "gentlemanly" traditions and outlook contrasted strongly with those of the Japanese army and whose failure to check the latter in its headstrong course makes one of the sadder episodes of recent history.
Here, for the first time, Yamamoto emerges as the complex, sympathetic, and in many ways contradictory character that he was. A realist who foresaw the future importance of the airplane for the navy long before his contemporaries and who believed that Japan would inevitably be defeated in any war with America and Britain, he was also an inveterate gambler with an odd streak of superstition. A tough leader, he had at the same time a vein of sentimentality that would allow him to burst into tears at the funeral of a young subordinate. In public the very epitome of the dignified national hero, in private he often showed a schoolboyish playfulness that was sometimes endearing and occasionally embarrassing. He was always ready to express his views with a frankness uncommon in his day, yet he revealed in the end the same readiness as most of his fellow countrymen to accept passively "the call of duty."

The author, refusing the temptation to indulge in speculation or "reconstruction," has gone straight to the original sources--accounts written by those who worked with Yamamoto; scores of interviews with men and women who knew him personally; above all, letters written by Yamamoto himself. The latter range from his more circumspect, semi-official communications to intimate letters addressed to his mistress or long-standing friends of both sexes, in which he bares his private doubts and pessimism. It is these personal documents and reminiscences that make the character so human and, ultimately, give such a moving quality to the account of his dramatic wartime death in the South Pacific.

An intimate portrait of the man who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and died a dramatic death in the South Pacific.

戦争に反対しながら、自ら対米戦争の火蓋を切らねばならなかった聯合艦隊司令官・山本五十六。今日なお人々の胸中に鮮烈な印象をとどめる、日本海軍史上最大の提督の赤裸々な人間像を余すところなく描いた著者畢生の力作。世界を震撼させた天才提督の栄光と悲劇を、膨大な資料と存命者の口述を基に、生き生きと甦らせ、激動の昭和史を浮彫りにした、必読の記録文学である。

著者の言葉
調べれば調べるほど、軍神とも聖将ともウォーモンガーともちがう山本五十六のイメージがはっきりして来た。真珠湾攻撃の立役者として世界に名高い提督だが、志操は米内さんや井上さんと全く同じ、ある意味で一番ハワイへ行きたくなかったのは山本さんだったろうと思って、書きながら涙ぐむこともあった。(略)
文学的な評価を別にしても、世評はまちまちであった。反町栄一氏が「あれは実にけしからん男だ、けしからんことが書いてある」と憤慨しているという噂も聞えて来たし、某中将某々中将らの、「たいへん公正な見方がしてある、山本さんは全くあの通りの人だった」という便りや言づてももらった。……(本書「作品後記」より)

阿川弘之(1920-2015)
広島市生まれ。1942(昭和17)年、東大国文科を繰上げ卒業し、海軍予備学生として海軍に入る。戦後、志賀直哉の知遇を得て師事。1953年、学徒兵体験に基づく『春の城』で読売文学賞を受賞。同世代の戦死者に対する共感と鎮魂あふれる作品も多い。芸術院会員。主な作品に『雲の墓標』『舷燈』『暗い波濤』『志賀直哉』のほか、『山本五十六』『米内光政』『井上成美』の海軍提督三部作がある。