Required:
Overy and Wheatcroft, The Road to War, pp. 258-88.

Murray and Millett, A War to Be Won, pp. 143-64.

Suggested:
Michael Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).

Akira Iriye, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (London: Longman, 1987).