John Toland (historian)

For other people named John Toland, seeJohn Toland (disambiguation).

John Willard Toland(June 29, 1912 – January 4, 2004)was an American writer and historian. He is best known for a biography ofAdolf Hitlerand aPulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II-era Japan,The Rising Sun.

John Willard Toland
Toland in 1971
Born	(1912-06-29)June 29, 1912 La Crosse, Wisconsin,U.S.
Died	January 4, 2004(2004-01-04)(aged 91) Danbury, Connecticut,U.S.
Education	Williams College Yale University
Notable awards	Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction

Biography

Toland was born in 1912 inLa Crosse, Wisconsin.He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1932 and fromWilliams Collegein 1936 and attended theYale School of Dramafor a time.His original goal was to become aplaywright.In the summers between college years, he traveled withhobosand wrote several plays with hobos as central characters, none of which were performed. He recalled in 1961 that in his early years as a writer he had been "about as big a failure as a man can be".He claimed to have written six complete novels, 26 plays, and a hundred short stories before completing his first sale, a short story for whichThe American Magazinepaid $165 in 1954.At one point he managed to get an article ondirigiblesintoLOOKmagazine; it proved extremely popular and led to his career as a historian. Dirigibles were the subject of his first full-length published book,Ships in the Sky(1957).

His most important work may beThe Rising Sun(Random House, 1970), for which he won thePulitzer Prize for General Nonfictionin 1971.Based on original and extensive interviews with high-ranking Japanese officials who survived the war, the book chronicles theEmpire of Japanfrom themilitary rebellion of February 1936to the end ofWorld War II.It won the Pulitzer because it was the first book in English to tell the history of thePacific Warfrom the Japanese point of view, rather than the prevailing American one.

Novels

While predominantly a writer of nonfiction, Toland also published two historical novels,Gods of WarandOccupation.He says in his 1997 autobiography that he earned little money from his prize-winnerThe Rising Sunbut was set for life from the earnings ofAdolf Hitler,for which he also did original research.

Death

Toland died ofpneumoniaon January 4, 2004, atDanbury HospitalinDanbury, Connecticut.

Books

Non-Fiction

External videos
Booknotesinterview with Toland onCaptured by History,September 14, 1997,C-SPAN

• Ships in the Sky: The Story of the Great Dirigibles(New York: Henry Holt; London: F. Muller, 1957)
• Battle: The Story of the Bulge,1959,ISBN0-8032-9437-9
• But Not in Shame: The Six Months After Pearl Harbor,1962,ISBN0-345-25748-0
• The Dillinger Days,1963,ISBN0-306-80626-6
• The Flying Tigers– Copyrighted 1963 First Printing From Laurel-Leaf Books 1979. Published by Dell PublishingISBN0-440-92621-1
• The Last 100 Days: The Tumultuous and Controversial Story of the Final Days of World War II in Europe,1966, reprint (2003)ISBN0-8129-6859-X
• The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945,1970 HC,ISBN0-394-44311-X,reprintISBN0-8129-6858-1
• The Great Dirigibles: Their Triumphs & Disasters,1972,ISBN0-486-21397-8
• Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography,1976,ISBN0-385-42053-6.
• No Man's Land: 1918, The Last Year of the Great War,1980,ISBN0-385-11291-2
• Infamy: Pearl Harbor And Its Aftermath,1982,ISBN0-385-42051-X
• In Mortal Combat: Korea 1950–1953,1991,ISBN0-688-10079-1
• Captured by History: One Man's Vision of Our Tumultuous Century,1997,ISBN0-312-15490-9

Novels

• Gods of War,1985,ISBN0-385-18007-1
• Occupation,1987,ISBN0-385-19819-1

Articles

• 'Death of a Dirigible', February 1959,American Heritage,Volume X Number 2, pp 18–23

See also

• List of books by or about Adolf Hitler

External links

• John Toland Papersat theNational Archives Catalog
• John TolandatLibrary of Congress,with 36 library catalog records