Ronald Spector reads from his new book, *In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia*. It is a sequel to the Prize-winning military historian's earlier book, *Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan*, hailed as the "definitive" one-volume account of World War II in the Pacific. Spector, who has been a historian at the US Army Center for Military History, also is the author of *After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam* and *At War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Conflict in the 20th Century*.