Infamy

February 16, 2015
Reeves (Portrait of Camelot) examines the key causes and dire consequences of the Japanese-American internment in relocation camps during WWII, concentrating on a shortsighted military strategy and anti-Japanese sentiment following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The psychological blow delivered by Tojo’s warplanes at the principal U.S. Navy base in Hawaii sent the country reeling and put America on a combat footing, both in the Pacific and domestically. In February 1942, F.D.R. issued Executive Order 9066, which declared parts of the American West military zones and opened the way for the removal of American citizens of Japanese descent to government camps. Reeves provides unsparing criticism about the racist whirlwind of anti-
Japanese feeling fanned by the Roosevelt White House, Congress, state and local governments, and leading media figures such as William Randolph Hearst, Walter Lippmann, and Edward R. Murrow. The testimonies of the uprooted Japanese-Americans, many of whom remained patriotic even as they were forced into the camps, are heartbreaking, courageous, and ironic in light of those who fought valiantly alongside American soldiers while their relatives remained locked away. Reeves’s chilling exposé takes a deeper look at one of America’s darkest chapters. Photos.

January 1, 2015
Former Frontline journalist Reeves (Portrait of Camelot: A Thousand Days in the Kennedy White House, 2010, etc.) brings his reporting chops to this history of America's less-publicized response to the Pearl Harbor bombings.The author brings a host of points of view to the story of the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans in the early 1940s, which was initiated by Franklin Roosevelt. Reeves liberally quotes politicians, reporters and citizens, rehashing the argument that "a Jap is a Jap" and therefore all Japanese aliens and even citizens on the West Coast needed to be removed. Reeves includes firsthand and secondhand accounts of life inside the camps. In addition to chronicling the poor living conditions, he also explores the details that made them livable-e.g., Boy Scout troops, high school dances and mail-order deliveries. Though Reeves' subject is an essentially bleak picture of hysterical racism, for the most part, the author does a solid job of balancing the dreary passages with occasional shots of humor, humanity or both. Neighbors who protected and managed Japanese-American family assets in preparation for their returns, college students who asserted that "the average intelligence of people in the United States was that of a high grade moron," and returning veterans who demanded better treatment of their comrades all serve as much-needed breaks from the norm of the day. Reeves unearths and makes public a painful national memory, but he does so while maintaining the dignity of those held behind barbed wire and unmasking the callous racism and disregard of the people who put them there. The author even allows for growth in his villains, giving credit when they later changed their positions. A few instances of repetition and the dark subject matter only occasionally slow the narrative. An engaging and comprehensive depiction of an essential, but sometimes-overlooked, era of U.S. history.

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Starred review from February 15, 2015
During WWII, newspapers, films, and the U.S. government regularly reminded citizens that they were fighting totalitarian governments whose populations were in constant fear of a knock on the door, followed by rapid transport to a concentration camp. It is a sad and cruel irony that Japanese Americans, citizens and noncitizens, lived under a similar fear. The forced relocation and internment of people was a racially based insult to our purported ideals. Reeves, an award-winning journalist, recounts the unfolding of this outrage with a justifiable sense of moral indignation. He reminds us that this was a national failure as he indicts political leaders, the courts, and ordinary citizens, many of whom were resentful of the success and prosperity of their Japanese neighbors. Although there was virtually no violent resistance, the Japanese did fight against their internment in the halls of Congress and the court system, which helped ameliorate conditions within the camps. Reeves lays out the broad outlines of the roundup and the structure of the camps, but he is at his best when he chronicles the experiences of particular families whose lives were ripped apart by what they went through, even as some of their young men chose to honorably serve in the military of the country that continued to detain their relatives. This is a painful but necessary and timely reminder of how overblown fears about national security can have shameful consequences.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Reeves' books always prove popular in public libraries and this one will be no exception.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2014

Leading journalist Reeves, a former chief correspondent for PBS's Frontline who was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, among other honors, interviewed survivors and plumbs letters, memoirs, and the relevant archives to document the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese aliens residing in the United States during World War II. In addition, he clarifies the xenophobia and vengefulness of people at that time, which touched even highly regarded individuals like Earl Warren, Edward R. Murrow, and FDR himself, while also showing that some people were opposed.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015

The bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces led America into World War II. It also resulted in several generations of Japanese Americans being removed from their homes and placed into guarded concentration camps. It took 30 years for survivors to start telling their tales of life behind barbed wires. (Congress would not create a commission to investigate the camps until 1980.) Reeves (President Kennedy: Profile of Power) does an admirable job of providing a detailed history of life within these American camps. This book not only relates the accounts of daily life in the war-relocation camps, it also traces how men such as Franklin Roosevelt and Earl Warren came to the decision to imprison citizens. The author looks beyond the walls of the camps to describe the experiences of the internees who joined the military and became some of the most decorated soldiers in the European theater. VERDICT While there have been several personal histories about the internment camps, including Looking Like the Enemy by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald and Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne and James Houston, Reeves mixes intimate narratives with historical documents to give an authoritative account of one of the darkest periods in American history. Essential for all libraries.--John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.