The fourth and latest volume in the series of English translation from the seven volume Japanese work, Taiheyo senso no michi; kaisen gaiko shi (The Road to the Pacific War; A Diplomatic History of the Origins of the War), Japan Erupts chronicles the era which opened with the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and extended through the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and the spread of hostilities in Asia thereafter. Despite pious hopes for disarmament expressed by statesmen at Versailles, the immediate postwar years were marked by an escalation of plans for naval expansion and by the growing fear that clashing American and Japanese interests would bring on a Pacific war. Agreements in the Washington Naval Treaty successfully controlled the growth of battleships and aircraft carries but ignored cruisers, destroyers and submarines, and within months of the signing of that treaty the American, British and Japanese naval staffs were planning new construction and strategies in these uncontrolled categories.