Replies

Of course, in my view "popular history" is the only history worth much more than a bucket of spit, because it's the only history that tells us, as a people, who we are, and how we got here.

This really shows your ignorance on the subject. There are plenty of scholarly works that get bought everyday. They are also very good works of history and very interesting. Stennitt is just not one of them.

I have a full bookshelf of books by both popular and scholarly authors and I didn't go anyplace special to get them. For the second time now I have recommended reading to you after you have asked for it and for the second time you have brushed it aside. This tells me that you are really not interested in getting smarter on the subject or were just lying when you said you wanted more information. So along with the credibility issues you have I'm beginning to wonder if you have an integrity problem as well.

"For the second time now I have recommended reading to you after you have asked for it and for the second time you have brushed it aside.
This tells me that you are really not interested in getting smarter on the subject or were just lying when you said you wanted more information."

First, I'll say it again: what I'm looking for is a recent book which tells the whole story, while addressing every issue, question, myth or lie that has been raised by other authors over the many years since 12/7/1941.

Now, you might be interested to learn that if you buy one of those new "Nook" or "Kindle" devices, you can download every single word of Pearl Harbor testimony, all 10,000 pages as you say -- for free.
So anyone who's truly interested, can happily spend weeks and months reading every excuse known to mankind about why our guys got caught, literally, with their pants down on 12/7/1941.

But why do that?
Why duplicate the efforts of many scholars and experts who've spent untold years studying every jot and tittle of it, who can quote large sections of it from memory, and, most important have made highly informed judgments on who was telling the truth, who was obfuscating and deflecting, and when and why they did it.

For every question and answer, there were issues, disputes and conflicting facts that can color, or texture, our understandings of what was said.
But you'll never understand those issues just by picking it up and reading.
You have to know it better than that.

And that's just what scholars are for -- it's why we have scholars.
So I say, let the scholars do their work, and I'll pay to see what they come up with.

All I ask is that they be totally honest, and at least half-way respectful of others they disagree with.

In short: "Author X is a fricken idiot" is just not an acceptable scholarly response to ideas you may disagree with.