In War in the American Pacific and East Asia, 1941–1972, editor Hal Friedman brings together nine essays that explore lesser known aspects and consequences of America's military expansion into the Pacific during and after World War II. This study explores how the United States won the Pacific War against Japan and how it sought to secure that victory in the decades that followed, ensure it never endured another Pearl Harbor–style defeat, and saw the Pacific fulfill a Manifest Destiny–like role as an American frontier projected toward East Asia.

Theater of war : the U.S. Army's Command and Administrative Communications Network in the Pacific, 1940-1950 /Rebecca Robbins Raines -- Here's your air war : popular culture depictions of air power in the Pacific / Steve Call -- The U.S. Marine Corps Raiders, 1942-1944 : conflicting cultures of elitism / Stephen Houseknecht -- Yams, rice, and soda : food and the U.S. Navy on Pohnpei, 1945-1951 / Josh Levy -- Arguing over A-bombs : interservice rivalry and the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, September 1945-June 1947 / Hal M. Friedman -- Training a national army in time of civil war : the American military advisory mission to China, 1945-1949 / Katherine K. Reist -- Hidden island : military-media relations on Okinawa, 1945-1972 / Nicholas Evan Sarantakes.