The bestselling author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts interviews one of the venerable deans of Pacific naval history - a scholar who literally grew up with the subject matter.
In his youth, William R. Braisted followed his father's naval assignments to a life in China, Japan, and the Philippines. Those experiences were the foundation of a distinguished career as a historian of the U.S. Navy's role in the Far East in the decades before World War II. His three books - The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1897 - 1909 (1958), The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1909 - 1922 (1971), and Diplomats in Blue: U.S. Naval Officers in China, 1922 - 1933 (2009) - trace America's path toward engagement with the Far East and war with Japan.
