The Colonel and The Pacifist (Paperback)
The Colonel and the Pacifist tells the story of two men caught up in one of the most infamous episodes in American history. While they never met, Bendetsen and Saito’s lives touched tangentially—from their common hometown to their eventual testimony during the 1981 hearings of the Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. In weaving together these contrasting stories, Klancy Clark de Nevers not only exposes unknown or little known aspects of World War II history, she also explores larger issues of racism and war that resonate through the years and ring eerily familiar to our post-9/11 ears.
"Imaginative and lively, with sound scholarship, The Colonel and the Pacifist is a significant contribution not only to American history generally, but to Japanese American studies and the period of the second World War. And it does so in a lively and provocative fashion."—Sandra Taylor, author of Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz
"The Colonel and the Pacifist is a fascinating and engaging account of divergent lives marked by a singular event—World War II—and their choices exercised in shaping the course and writing of history. Highly recommended."—Gary Y. Okihiro author of The Columbia Guide to Asian American History
"Paralleling the lives of two men on opposing sides of one of the most perplexing and complicated episodes in American history is an effective means of reopening the debate over causes and casualties of Japanese internment. De Never's provocative and insightful book will aid in that process."—Pacific Northwest Quarterly