Publisher, Tantor Media (July 2009)

NOTE: RETAIL EDITIONS are packaged in attractive, compact cardboard, jewel-case or DVD shrink-wrapped cases, with full-color art.

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2009 American Heritage Top 25 History Book

2010 Audie Award-Winner in the 'History' Category

Audible Best Audiobook of 2009

"A well-told, well-researched, and moving narrative." ---Peter Matthiessen, author of the National Book Award winner Shadow Country

"[An] absorbing history." ---Publishers Weekly

"The narrative even humanizes the anguished Japanese commanders condemned by a victor's justice that held them accountable for offenses of out-of-control subordinates.... Indispensable." ---Booklist Starred Review

"A narrative achievement.... If you aren’t weeping openly by the book’s final scenes...then you have a hard crust of salt around your soul." ---The New York Times

"Highly recommended." ---Kirkus

"Prichard's serious presence fades into the background as the authors' tales of brutality, disease, starvation, and death take the spotlight." ---AudioFile

For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America's first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history.

The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make dramatically clear in this powerfully original book. From then until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, and torture---far from the machinations of General Douglas MacArthur.

The Normans bring to the story remarkable feats of reportage and literary empathy. Their protagonist, Ben Steele, is a figure out of Hemingway: a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world. Juxtaposed against Steele's story and the sobering tale of the Death March and its aftermath is the story of a number of Japanese soldiers.

The result is an altogether new and original World War II book: it exposes the myths of military heroism as shallow and inadequate; and it makes clear, with great literary and human power, that war causes suffering for people on all sides.

About the Author: Michael Norman, a former reporter and columnist for the New York Times, is on the faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University and is the author of These Good Men: Friendships Forged in War. Norman was the inaugural writer for the New York Times columns "A Sense of Place," a monthly column exploring the dislocations of modern life in one suburban town; "Lessons," a national column on education; and "Our Towns," a twice-weekly column on life outside New York City. Norman has also written major articles for various other national publications, including the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and GQ. His work has been syndicated both in the United States and abroad, and he is the author of These Good Men: Friendships Forged in War, a memoir published to critical acclaim in 1990. He lives with his wife and two sons in New Jersey.

Elizabeth M. Norman is an associate professor of nursing and director of the doctoral program at New York University's Division of Nursing in the School of Education. Her specialty is nursing history. The recipient of many honors and awards, she is the author of Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam; We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese; and numerous articles. She lives with her husband and two sons in New Jersey.

About the Narrator: Michael Prichard has played several thousand characters during his career. While he has been seen performing over 100 of them in theater and film, Michael is primarily heard, having recorded over 450 full-length books. During his career as a one-man repertory company, he has recorded many series with running characters---including the complete Travis McGee adventures by John D. MacDonald, the complete Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout, the Dirk Pitt adventures by Clive Cussler, and more than a dozen other series by masters of suspense ranging from Georges Simenon and Dashiell Hammett to Robert B. Parker and Tom Clancy---as well as series by such greats as Mark Twain, Herman Wouk, John Cheever, and John Updike. He has won an Audie Award and three AudioFile Earphones Awards for his nonfiction recordings, and SmartMoney magazine named him one of the Top Ten Golden Voices, an asset he developed as a boy singing at the wheel of a tractor on his family's farm. Jesuits taught him Latin, Greek, and French, and he earned his M.F.A. in theater from the University of Southern California. In addition to narrating, he works at the Pasadena Playhouse.