Assembling more than thirty primary documents - including proposals, memoranda, decrypted messages, and imperial conference reports - Iriye presents diplomatic exchanges from both American and Japanese perspectives to determine how and why the United States and Japan went to war in 1941. A detailed introduction provides background on Japanese aggression in China and Southeast Asia during the 1930s and economic unrest and isolationism in the United States.

Readings add an interpretive dimension, placing Pearl Harbor in global context with essays from American, Japanese, Chinese, Soviet, German, British, and Indonesian perspectives that explain how various countries applied pressure, offered assistance, exacerbated rifts, and significantly affected negotiations and Japan's ultimate decision for war.