Almost a day by day cradle to the grave accounting of the famous aircraft carrier. Is written more as a history text rather than anecdotal events. The acronyms are particularly  overwhelming, I keep one finger in the footnotes so to easily flip back and catch the abbreviations. 

This reading has given me an appreciation for the SBD "Dauntless"! 

Tim Madigan

The author, who is a professor of history at MIT, describes how the post-war American occupation yielded a wholesale change in Japanese culture, economics, politics, etc. that was not mirrored by the other defeated Axis powers or in the various Asian countries that the Allies had liberated.

After fifteen years of indoctrination by the militarists and ultra-nationalists who ran their government, the Japanese people were suddenly free to be actual citizens instead of Hirohito's subjects. But the transition was not an easy one and the U.S. occupation lasted almost twice as long as the war itself.

The book, which was published back in 1999, earned the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the LA Times Book Prize for Non-Fiction.

The book I read before this was "The Truth" - also a book I probably haven't re-read in 15-20 years. As I described it to a friend, 26 years ago, Pratchett published a novel that was about what happens when the wealthy conspire to manipulate facts to upend the power structure in order to drive out immigrants and gain access to unfettered wealth, all by way of controlling the news. 

And when I put it that way, it sure does feel like it was written today, inspired by current events.