Ian W. Toll
Author of the Pacific War Trilogy
Vol. 3 of the Pacific War Trilogy debuts at #9 on the New York Times Bestsellers List!​
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The final volume of the magisterial Pacific War Trilogy from acclaimed historian Ian W. Toll, “one of the great storytellers of war” (Evan Thomas).
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Twilight of the Gods is a riveting account of the harrowing last year of World War II in the Pacific, when the U.S. Navy won the largest naval battle in history; Douglas MacArthur made good his pledge to return to the Philippines; waves of kamikazes attacked the Allied fleets; the Japanese fought to the last man on one island after another; B-29 bombers burned down Japanese cities; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vaporized in atomic blasts.
Ian W. Toll’s narratives of combat in the air, at sea, and on the beaches are as gripping as ever, but he also takes the reader into the halls of power in Washington and Tokyo, where the great questions of strategy and diplomacy were decided. Lionel Barber of the Financial Times chose the second volume of the series (The Conquering Tide) as the preeminent book of 2016, calling it “military history at its best.” Readers who have been waiting for the conclusion of Toll’s masterpiece will be thrilled by this final volume.
PRAISE FOR THE PACIFIC TRILOGY
“A beautiful blend of history and prose and proves again Mr. Toll’s mastery of the naval-war narrative, carrying the reader smoothly from the marble halls of Washington to the Pacific’s gritty, red-stained beaches.” (Jonathan W. Jordan - Wall Street Journal)
“No one has told the story of World War II in the Pacific, from beginning to bitter end, better than Ian W. Toll. This final volume concludes a brilliant trilogy. Elegant and supremely readable―don’t miss the finest military history of 2020.” (Alex Kershaw - New York Times best-selling author of The First Wave and Avenue of Spies)
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“Toll’s expertly navigated narrative includes a number of new insights…It is exhaustive and authoritative and it shows the Navy in World War II as it really was, warts and all.” (Mark Perry, New York Times Book Review)
"Combining beautiful prose with the gritty and bloody realities of the island hopping strategy, Toll’s third and final volume has been eagerly awaited by scholars and military history aficionados alike." (Claire Barrett - HistoryNet)
“A riveting account of how the U.S. clawed its way back from defeat against initially unstoppable Japanese air, land and sea invasion forces after Pearl Harbor.... Toll offers a masterly guide to naval warfare and decision-making in Tokyo and Washington. He captures the brutish, all too often short life on deck and in the foxholes. This is military history at its best. Bring on volume three!” (Lionel Barber - Financial Times)
“[A] magnificent saga of the last year of the Pacific War....every bit as captivating as his first two [volumes]--Pacific Crucible (2011) and The Conquering Tide (2015)....A wonderful teller of war stories, Toll is also a shrewd cultural observer...Toll is a master; he is writing for the ages.” (Evan Thomas, author of Sea of Thunder and Ike's Bluff)
“In his masterly narrative, Ian Toll brings clarity and a stinging immediacy to America's long, bitter climb up the island ladder that led to Japan. This is maritime history at its best and most accessible, told with a verve that will leave the reader wondering how such a long book could have sped by so quickly.” (Richard Snow, author of Iron Dawn and A Measureless Peril)
