Date of Award
4-1966
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
Preface
There are as many interpretations as there are writers on the positions of American foreign policy during the diplomatic negotiations with Japan in 1941. Historians supporting President Roosevelt's position tend to blame Japan's imperialism and expansionism as one of the main causes of the war. Revisionist historians like Charles Beard, Harry Elmer Barnes, and Charles Tansill, place the responsibility for Japan's declaration of war and surprise attack on the intransigent approach of the Roosevelt administration. To place the full burden of responsibility for the failure of negotiations on either Japan or the United States is to over-simplify the complex events of 1941. The value of the historical writings supporting President Roosevelt's position is their explanation of Japan's aims and purposes in the Far East, while the revisionist's significant contribution is their critique of the method and principles of American foreign policy in the Far East.
In this study an attempt will be made to give a balanced explanation of the diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan, and to examine the reasons why both Japan and the United States failed to reach a negotiated settlement.
Recommended Citation
Gorn, Edward, "Japanese - American Relations, 1941: A Preface to Pearl Harbor" (1966). Masters Theses. 3852.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3852