If you're interested in the racial aspect of the Pacific War, check out John Dower's excellent book War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. Another very interesting book written by Saburo Ienaga, who caused quite a stir in Japan, is Pacific War, 1931-1945.
You can listen to FDR's War Declaration on Dec 8, which includes the famous "a day that will live in infamy" as well as an outline, delivered with fantastic simplicity and effectiveness, of the Japanese advance across Asia-- though expansion had began waay back in the day, this was the start of what would be the GEACPS. (My prof, trying to describe the image that appears on the right of that link: "So we have an image that makes very rosy the idealized relationship of Japan, China, and the Manchu-- Manchukuo-- so you have the girl on the left, the girl-- is that a girl? Is the other one a girl? Um. . . anyway.") FDR's stark rhetoric at that part of the speech I think is incredibly evocative of the stunning speed and success of the Japanese expansion in the first six months of the war.
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