Bridging the Atomic Divide: Debating Japan-US Attitudes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

(Hardback)

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Harry Wray and Seishiro Sugihara transcend the one-sided Tokyo Trial view of the war in an effort to conduct a balanced exchange on historical perception. This will be of interest equally to both those inside and outside Japan who are perplexed by Japans victimization consciousness. Through this impassioned and heartfelt dialogue, Wray challenges theories embraced by some Japanese who believe that the US simply used the atomic bombings to make the Soviet Union manageable in the Cold War, as alleged by the Hiroshima Peace Museum and in Japanese school history textbooks. They ask why it is the Japanese people dont recognize how the atomic bombings not only spared the further sacrifice of American and Japanese lives by accelerating the end of the war, but also prevented a wide-scale Soviet invasion of the Japanese mainland, had the war continued into the latter half of 1945. While early censorship of writings about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both outright and self-imposed, continued through the Occupation, Sugihara proposes that, long after the Americans had packed up and gone home, the Foreign Ministry established and nurtured a postwar paradigm which rendered open and critical discussion of war-related issues, such as Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombings, impossible for the Japanese public. It is no wonder then that Japanese attitudes towards the atomic bombings remain mired in victimization myths. Uniquely, Wray and Sugihara attempt to persuade the Japanese to reexamine their attitudes to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to show that the atomic bombings, perversely, brought a swift end to the war and helped Japan escape the act of partition which afflicted postwar Germany and remains an intractable problem in a divided Korea.

Reviews

The act of interpretation is an integral part of human life, and therefore varies depending on an individuals perspective. Although there can be only one set of historical facts, the interpretation of those facts may differ according to point of view. It is only natural then that the understanding of the dropping of the atomic bombs will also vary between the side which used them and the side on which they were used. Even so, a flawed understanding of historical fact will result in faulty interpretations, and a stubborn insistence on those unsound interpretations can lead to the corruption of the national moral code. This book presents the first dialogue between two scholars, one Japanese and one American, which tries to put an end to these flawed interpretations while acknowledging real differences in position. It represents a genuine reconciliation between Japan and the US over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -- Shigeki Kaizuka, Musashino University

Author Bio

Harry Wray (19312017) taught history in Japan for nearly three decades, most recently at Aichi Mizuho College. Seishiro Sugihara is former professor of history at Josai University.