James H. Webb

James H. Webb (born 1946), usually known as Jim Webb, is an American novelist, journalist, lawyer, former Marine officer and public official whose writing is strongly shaped by military service and the history of war. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he served as a Marine rifle platoon and company commander in Vietnam, receiving the Navy Cross, Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. After leaving active service, he earned a law degree from Georgetown University and later served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, Secretary of the Navy and, from 2007 to 2013, United States Senator for Virginia. He has also worked as an Emmy Award-winning journalist, screenwriter and filmmaker. His firsthand knowledge of combat and military institutions gives much of his fiction an unusually detailed treatment of soldiers, leadership, loyalty and the political decisions behind warfare.

Webb’s best-known novel, Fields of Fire, draws on his Vietnam experience to follow a group of U.S. Marines through the brutality and comradeship of infantry combat during the war. The Emperor’s General moves back to the closing stages of the Second World War and the American occupation of Japan, combining fictional characters with General Douglas MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito and Japanese commander Tomoyuki Yamashita and examining the controversial war-crimes proceedings against Yamashita. His other novels include A Sense of Honor, centred on the U.S. Naval Academy; A Country Such as This, which follows American lives across the post-war decades; Something to Die For, a political and military thriller; and Lost Soldiers, in which a former Marine returns to Vietnam decades after the war to investigate the remains of a missing American serviceman. Webb has also written nonfiction, notably the memoir I Heard My Country Calling and Born Fighting, a history of the Scots-Irish experience in America.