John Willard Toland (June 29, 1912 – January 4, 2004) was an American writer and historian. He is best known for a biography of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II-era Japan, ''

The Rising Sun ''The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945'' is a non-fiction history book by John Toland, published by Random House in 1970. It won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. It was republished by Random Ho ...

''.

Biography

Toland was born in 1912 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1932 and from

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

in 1936 and attended the

Yale School of Drama The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in e ...

for a time. His original goal was to become a playwright. In the summers between college years, he traveled with hobos and wrote several plays with hobos as central characters, none of which were performed. He recalled in 1961 that in his early years as a writer he had been "about as big a failure as a man can be". He claimed to have written six complete novels, 26 plays, and a hundred short stories before completing his first sale, a short story for which ''

The American Magazine ''The American Magazine'' was a periodical publication founded in June 1906, a continuation of failed publications purchased a few years earlier from publishing mogul Miriam Leslie. It succeeded ''Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'' (1876–1904), ' ...

'' paid $165 in 1954. At one point he managed to get an article on

dirigibles An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early d ...

into '' LOOK'' magazine; it proved extremely popular and led to his career as a historian. Dirigibles were the subject of his first full-length published book, ''Ships in the Sky'' (1957). His most important work may be ''The Rising Sun'' (Random House, 1970), for which he won the

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published duri ...

in 1971."General Nonfiction"
The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-11-12. Based on original and extensive interviews with high-ranking Japanese officials who survived the war, the book chronicles the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan, 1947 constitu ...

from the military rebellion of February 1936 to the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. It won the Pulitzer because it was the first book in English to tell the history of the Pacific War from the Japanese point of view, rather than the prevailing American one.

Novels

While predominantly a writer of nonfiction, Toland also published two historical novels, ''Gods of War'' and ''Occupation''. He says in his 1997 autobiography that he earned little money from his prize-winner ''

'' but was set for life from the earnings of ''Adolf Hitler'', for which he also did original research. Toland died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

on January 4, 2004, at

Danbury Hospital Danbury Hospital is a 456-bed hospital in Danbury, Connecticut serving patients in Fairfield County, Connecticut, as well as Westchester County and Putnam County, New York. The hospital has 3,300 employees and is part of the Nuvance Health sys ...

in Danbury, Connecticut.

Books

Non-Fiction *''Ships in the Sky: The Story of the Great Dirigibles'' (New York: Henry Holt; London: F. Muller, 1957) *''Battle: The Story of the Bulge'', 1959, . *''But Not in Shame: The Six Months After Pearl Harbor'', 1962, *''The Dillinger Days'', 1963, . *''The Flying Tigers'' - Copyrighted 1963 First Printing From Laurel-Leaf Books 1979. Published by Dell Publishing *''The Last 100 Days: The Tumultuous and Controversial Story of the Final Days of World War II in Europe'', 1966, reprint (2003) *'' The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945'', 1970 HC , reprint . *''The Great Dirigibles: Their Triumphs & Disasters'', 1972, . *
Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography
', 1976, . *''No Man's Land: 1918, The Last Year of the Great War'', 1980, *''Infamy: Pearl Harbor And Its Aftermath'', 1982, *''In Mortal Combat: Korea 1950-1953'', 1991, *''Captured by History: One Man's Vision of Our Tumultuous Century'', 1997, Novels *''Gods of War'', 1985, . *''Occupation'', 1987,

Articles

*'Death of a Dirigible', February 1959, ''American Heritage'', Volume X Number 2, pp 18–23

References

External links