Departments

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World War 2

  • SOURCE: NPR
    8/1/2020

    Opinion: 75 Years On, Remember Hiroshima And Nagasaki. But Remember Toyama Too

    by Cary Karacas and David Fedman

    AAF officials commonly used sanitizing language to mask the fact that they were targeting entire cities for destruction. Press releases described attacks not on cities, but on "industrial urban areas." Tactical reports set their sights not on densely populated neighborhoods, but on "worker housing."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    8/6/2020

    After Atomic Bombings, These Photographers Worked Under Mushroom Clouds

    Photographs commissioned by Japanese newspapers in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were suppressed by American occupation authorities in both countries. A new book offers Americans a new opportunity to grasp the physical and human toll of nuclear weapons. 

  • 8/9/2020

    Unconditional Surrender: The Domestic Politics of Victory in the Pacific

    by Marc Gallicchio

    The terms on which the United States pressed Japan for surrender were shaped by American domestic politics; New Deal Democrats and their liberal allies succeeded in convincing Harry Truman that it was necessary to dramatically rebuild Japan's society along more social-democratic lines. 

  • SOURCE: National Security Archive
    8/4/2020

    The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

    Extensive Compilation of Primary Source Documents Explores Manhattan Project, Eisenhower’s Early Misgivings about First Nuclear Use, Curtis LeMay and the Firebombing of Tokyo, Debates over Japanese Surrender Terms, Atomic Targeting Decisions, and Lagging Awareness of Radiation Effects

  • SOURCE: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
    8/3/2020

    What Europeans Believe about Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and Why it Matters

    A European's belief that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a military necessity that ultimately saved lives correlates with less acceptance of nuclear disarmament. History is important for citizens' ability to judge issues related to the dangers of nuclear weapons. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    7/30/2020

    Returning From War, Returning to Racism

    Historians and scholars including Ira Katznelson, Jeffrey Sammons, Edward Humes, Richard Rothstein, David H. Onkst, and Charissa Threat describe the difficulties faced by Black veterans of World War II returning to a racist society. 

  • SOURCE: Minneapolis Star-Tribune
    7/28/2020

    New Statues Stoke Sensitivity Between South Korea, Japan

    A pair of new statues in South Korea of a man kneeling in front of a girl symbolizing a victim of sexual slavery by Japan's wartime military is the latest subject of diplomatic sensitivity between the countries, with Tokyo's government spokesperson questioning whether the male figure represents the Japanese prime minister.

  • 8/2/2020

    The Battle of The Atlantic has Lessons for Fighting COVID-19

    by Marc Wortman

    Pleasure-seekers and shoreline business owners on the east coast of the United States rejected voluntary calls to dim their lights in 1942. German U-Boat crews devastated shipping and commerce until compulsory blackouts were enforced. 

  • 8/9/2020

    Did the Atomic Bomb End the Pacific War? – Part II

    by Paul Ham

    Japan's surrender was hastened by imminent invasion by the Soviet Red Army, a crippling US naval blockade and conventional bombing, and a diplomatic promise to protect the Japanese Emperor from execution, argues Paul Ham. Granting undue credit to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki excuses atrocity. 

  • 8/2/2020

    Did the Atomic Bomb End the Pacific War? – Part I

    by Paul Ham

    Many people, including historians, believe that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused Japan's unconditional surrender, saved a million American lives, and was the least morally repellent way to end World War II. Paul Ham contends that none of this is true. 

  • SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
    7/20/2020

    The Strange Defeat of the United States

    by Robert Zaretsky

    Eighty years later, Bloch’s investigation casts useful light for those historians who, gripped by the white heat of their own moment, may seek to understand the once unthinkable defeat of the United States in its “war” against the new coronavirus.