Hiroshima/Nagasaki (Military History)

Introduction

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 represented the culmination of the struggle between Imperial Japan and the Allied powers during the Pacific War (1941–1945). The bombings spawned a vast literature; much of it dealing principally with accounts of the actual bombings and the accounts of those who survived the atomic blasts (known in Japan as the hibakusha). This initially narrow focus on the subject has been greatly broadened over the past several decades by academics. Beginning in the 1960s, historians began to link the atomic bombings to the beginning of the Cold War, whereas others produced works that focused on the transformative effects of the bombings on military strategy and the moral and ethical implications of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The existing body of literature also began to consider the legacy of the bombings through cultural studies as well as through extensive use of film and literature for both the Japanese and the American people. Major work has also focused on the key individuals responsible for the creation and decision to use the atomic bombs in 1945. Several central questions serve to unite the vast array of sources that exist on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First, what motivated the United States to utilize the bombs? Second, what role did the bombs play in ending the Pacific War? Third, what have been the long-term consequences of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a military, social, technological, and cultural level for the wider world since 1945? The wealth of material on Hiroshima and Nagasaki attests to the powerful pull that these two events continue to exert on historical memory and signals that no single narrative or approach in dealing with the topics of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been agreed upon.

Historical Background

The use of the atomic bomb can be linked to the unique circumstances of the Pacific War that differentiated itself from the European theatre in many important ways. General histories of the Pacific War generally fall within two camps, either placing the fighting in the Pacific within the broader context of the global struggle between authoritarian and democratic regimes or setting aside the Pacific conflict as a singular event different from the war in Europe. Major works also are often divided by focus on naval operations versus army operations and by emphasis on particular national experiences in the war. The Center of Military History 1948–1963 gives the standard history of American Army operations against Japanese forces focusing on the tactical level. Costello 1981 presents a broader picture of the Pacific by also including discussions of the war on the Asian mainland and the role of the British Commonwealth. Dower 1986 focuses on the idea of the Pacific War as a war about racial identity to attempt to explain why the Pacific conflict differed from the American and British war against Germany in terms of levels of violence. Ienaga 1978 presents a view of the war from the Japanese perspective that is designed to chronicle the social history of the war rather than the diplomatic or military side. Morison 1947–1962 complements the Center of Military History 1948–1963 by giving the most comprehensive account of American naval operations in the Pacific on both the strategic and tactical levels and setting the standard for official histories of the war. Spector 1985 presents a balanced synthesis of the vast existing literature on the Pacific War to give a full overview of the conflict from the diplomatic and military perspectives, but the author also introduces a strong element of social history in his discussion of American servicemen’s encounters with the foreign societies of Asia and the Pacific. Toland 2003 discusses the war in the Pacific in a more selective manner than those by Costello 1981 or Spector 1985 by focusing on the process by which Japan went to war in the Pacific and on specific elements of the American counteroffensives after 1942. Weinberg 1994 attempts to present the Pacific War as part of the larger global struggle between authoritarianism and democratic governments rather than as a separate conflict, only tied to the war in Europe in the most tenuous of manners.

Center of Military History, United States Army. United States Army in World War II. Vol. 2, The War in the Pacific. Washington, DC: Historical Division, Department of the Army, 1948–1963.
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This eleven-volume official history focuses primarily on American Army tactical operations in the southwest Pacific and the Philippines but suffers from varied quality of analysis and interpretation due to its multiple-author format.
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Costello, John. The Pacific War 1941–1945. New York: Quill, 1981.
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A highly readable one-volume account of the Pacific War that eschews the dominant focus on the American role in favor of a broader view of a truly Allied war effort by highlighting the important role of the British Commonwealth in the Pacific and Asia.
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Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon, 1986.
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Explains the role of race and racial identity in the Pacific War from both the American and Japanese perspectives and demonstrates how this line of thinking was responsible for the willingness by both sides to commit extreme acts of violence on the other.
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Ienaga, Saburō. The Pacific War: World War II and the Japanese, 1931–1945. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
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First published in Japanese in 1968, Ienaga chronicles the social effects on the war on both the citizens of Japan, as well as groups who lived under Japanese rule such as the Chinese and Koreans, and highlights the development of Japanese militarism in the 1930s.
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Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. 15 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, 1947–1962.
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Volumes Three through Eight and Twelve through Fourteen chronicle in exceptional detail the strategic policies and tactical actions of the United States Navy in fighting the Pacific War and established the official histories of the Pacific War as a crucial resources for scholars.
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Spector, Ronald H. The Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York: Vintage, 1985.
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A inclusive view of the multiple aspects of the Pacific War that successfully synthesizes the vast literature from the American perspective on the diplomatic, military, and social fronts but with less coverage of the British Commonwealth’s role.
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Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945. New York: Modern Library, 2003.
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First published in 1970, Toland relies heavily on first-person accounts to reconstruct a political, diplomatic, and military history of the rise of Imperial Japan from the Japanese perspective with equal balance between involvement in Asia and in the Pacific.
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Weinberg, Gerhard. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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Attempts to present a holistic view of World War II in linking the wars in Europe and the Pacific. Highly successful in presenting a comprehensive overview of high-level strategy but lacks an equal discussion of tactical issues regarding the Pacific conflict.
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General Overviews

General histories of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be difficult to determine as most studies on these subjects approach them from a very broad approach. Many of these general histories can also be used as sources for considering the American decision to drop the bomb or the accounts of survivors’ experiences, for example. Gordin 2007 gives new insight into how the personnel tasked with preparing and delivering the bomb viewed the nature of the weapon itself and outlines some of the key debates about the use of the bomb. Hachiya 1955 provides a first-person account of the bombing and its immediate aftermath in the form of diary kept by a Japanese physician living in the city at the time of the bombing. Hersey 1985 is one of the most popular treatments of the bombing of Hiroshima after its initial publication in 1946. A journalistic treatment of the bombing, Hersey’s work focused on the experiences of six individuals immediately prior to, and for an extended period after, the bombings in order to present a picture of the human effects of the use of atomic power. Ishikawa and Swain 1981 presents the English translation of the 1979 Japanese text Hiroshima Nagasaki no genbaku saigai, which was an exhaustive study of the physical, medical, genetic, and psychological effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kort 2007 provides an omnibus of material related to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki including a discussion of the major historiographic interpretations, key primary resources, and a wide discussion of secondary sources. Marx 1971 presents a wide-ranging work that focuses more on the second bombing of Nagasaki with the intent of answering the question of whether that bombing was necessary to end the war. Walker 2005 traces the journey of the atomic bomb from the initial Trinity test in the New Mexico desert to its use against Hiroshima on 6 August, 1945. The book gives a multifaceted account bringing together the viewpoints of the scientists who designed and tested the bomb, the Enola Gay crew who delivered it, and the Japanese citizens who survived the blast. Wyden 1984 examines the bombing of Hiroshima from the roots of the American atomic program through the decision-making process to use the new weapon and the experiences of those living in Hiroshima on 6 August, 1945.

Gordin, Michael D. Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
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Argues that it was only the suddenness of the Japanese surrender that led American policymakers to view the bomb as a revolutionary weapon rather than simply a more powerful conventional weapon.
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Hachiya, Michihiko. Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6–September 30, 1945. Translated by Warner Wells. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955.
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A first-person account of the bombing, Hachiya details the physical and medical effects of the bomb and the struggle of medical personnel to understand the radiation sickness that later claimed many of the initial survivors of the blast.
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Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York: Knopf, 1985.
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First published in 1946, Hiroshima remains one of the most widely read accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima. The 1985 edition includes a new final chapter that discusses the six survivors forty years after the bombing.
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Ishikawa, Eisei, and David L. Swain, trans. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
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First published in 1979 by the Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this text focuses on the physical effects on the city and the medical and social effects on survivors, but also includes a discussion on abolishing nuclear arms.
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Kort, Michael. The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
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Designed as a reference tool rather than an interpretive piece, Kort provides a useful starting place for research on the various topics and questions related to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as to the plethora of available primary and secondary sources.
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Marx, Joseph Laurance. Nagasaki: The Necessary Bomb? New York: Macmillan, 1971.
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One of the few works focusing on Nagasaki, Marx presents a confusing and flawed argument that the bombing of Nagasaki did not help to end the war, as Japan was beaten by August 1945, but it was still a necessary action.
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Walker, Stephen. Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
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Based on personal interviews, primary sources, and secondary sources, Walker presents a wide-ranging examination of the bombing of Hiroshima and concludes that ultimately the bombs helped to shorten the war in the Pacific.
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Wyden, Peter. Day One: Before Hiroshima and After. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
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Similar in approach to Walker’s Shockwave, Wyden focuses more on the personalities of the individuals involved in the creation of the bomb and the debate over its use within the American policymaking establishment.
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The Manhattan Project

Any discussion of research on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must consider the literature on the Manhattan Project, the joint American-British-Canadian program that produced the first two atomic weapons in history, codenamed “Fat Man” and “Little Boy.” Historians’ examination of the Manhattan Project has generally focused on the institutional history of the program or on the key figures, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer or US General Leslie R. Groves, who made the production of the atomic bomb a reality. This traditional focus has been supplemented in recent years in an effort to understand the effect of the Manhattan Project on scientific research in general in the 20th century, the experiences of the more than 130,000 individuals who participated at various levels on the project, and the larger meaning of atomic power for human society. Groves 1962 and Jones 1985 both are representative of the traditional institutional approaches in discussing the Manhattan Project, with Jones 1985 serving as a more complete history of the program. Hughes 2002 examines the role that the Manhattan Project had in fostering the development of “Big Science,” an increase in the scope, scale, and cost of scientific research in the 20th century. Kelly 2009 presents a collection of primary sources related to the Manhattan Project that is contextualized by the inclusion of essays debating the American decision to utilize the weapons. The website Manhattan Project Voices, led by the Atomic Heritage Foundation and the Los Alamos Historical Society, contains numerous oral history interviews of individuals who worked on the atomic program at the various locales and at differing levels of the project. Rhodes 1986 gives a more popular historical account of the Manhattan Project and is less a history of the program itself and more an attempt to find larger meaning for humanity in the development of atomic power in the 20th century. Rotter 2008 provides an international perspective on the creation of the atom bomb, detailing how nations other than the United States pursued the development of atomic power. Stoff, et al. 1991 presents a well-balanced introduction to the numerous primary sources that form the core of historical discussion on the Manhattan Project. Szasz 1992 seeks to reintroduce the important role that British scientists played in the development of the atomic bombs that has been overshadowed in American historical memory.

Groves, Leslie R. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
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Covering from September 1942 through December 1946, this is not meant to be a complete history of the program but rather a valuable source for the insights it gives into General Groves’s handling of the complex problems faced by the Manhattan Project.
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Hughes, Jeff. The Manhattan Project: Big Science and the Atom Bomb. Cambridge, UK: Icon, 2002.
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Examines the role that atomic research played in placing science at the heart of national security questions and in helping to push the development of “Big Science” forward in the 20th century.
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Jones, Vincent C. Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb. United States Army in World War II. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1985.
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Although not offering new interpretations, Jones provides a thorough institutional and administrative history of the US Army’s role in the Manhattan Project. Because of this focus, some issues, such as the bombing of Japan, receive less consideration than in other works.
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Kelly, Cynthia, ed. The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians. Introduction by Richard Rhodes. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009.
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Provides a sizeable number of primary documents from figures involved in the Manhattan Project that examines the science behind the bombs as well as insights into the community of scientists who created the bomb. The addition of essays by historians examining the debate over the bomb’s use provides a sound context for readers.
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Manhattan Project Voices.
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A joint venture by the Atomic Heritage Foundation and the Los Alamos Historical Society, the website contains over fifty oral history interviews with participants in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos (NM), Oak Ridge (TN), and Hanford (WA) on an array of topics.
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Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.
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A popular synthesis of the literature surrounding the atomic program rather than an institutional history based on archival research. Focuses on questions about the growth of physics and the long-term effect of atomic power on the wider human society.
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Rotter, Andrew J. Hiroshima: The World’s Bomb. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
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Less technically focused than Rhodes 1986, with a concentration on the international origins of atomic research and comparison of various attempts by nations to engineer an atomic bomb during World War II.
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Stoff, Michael B., Jonathan F. Fanton, and R. Hal Williams, eds. The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction to the Atomic Age. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
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A collection of primary source material, culled from American archives, that focuses on specific elements of the Manhattan Project including the creation of the project, postwar planning, and internal debates among the scientists responsible for the bomb’s creation.
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Szasz, Ferenc Morton. British Scientists and the Manhattan Project: The Los Alamos Years. New York: St. Martin’s, 1992.
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Asserts that the British Scientific Mission to Los Alamos between 1943 and 1947 was one of three indispensable elements, along with the leadership of Oppenheimer and Groves, that led to the successful completion of the atomic bomb.
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The American Decision to Drop the Bomb

One of the most controversial aspects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the question of the American decision to use the bombs against Japan. Arguably, no other single aspect of this topic has received more attention than the decision by President Harry Truman to order the use of the atomic bombs against targets in Japan. Two central arguments emerged in the works dealing with the decision. First, the bombs were a necessary action undertaken to bring an end to the war and negate the need to invade mainland Japan. This action, it is argued, was responsible for saving thousands of American troops as well as potentially hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who would have perished in the invasion. The second interpretation became prominent in the 1960s and argued that the use of the bombs had little, if anything, to do with ending the war. Rather, the use of the atomic bombs was designed to impress the Soviet Union and allow the United States to deal with it from a position of strength in the postwar world. Alperovitz 1995 represents an expanded version of his long-standing argument that the use of the bombs was an unwarranted action in August 1945, as Japan was on the verge of surrender and other means could have been used to end the conflict. Bernstein 1998 presents a concise examination of the documentary evidence most often utilized by historians in discussing the American decision to drop the bombs and offers a balanced interpretation of the decision. The Truman Library compiled a collection of documents in its holdings that stretches from 1945 to 1964, as well as several oral history interviews in the useful website on the Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Malloy 2008 gives a nuanced interpretation of the role of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson in the decision to use the bombs. Giangreco 1997 focuses on the role that casualty estimates for an invasion of Japan played in influencing decisively Truman’s authorization to use the bomb. Malloy 2012 presents an exceptionally useful overview of the vast literature surrounding the American decision. Newman 1995 represents an impassioned defense of the traditional interpretation of the decision to use the bombs: it saved lives and shortened the war. Takaki 1995 broadens the historical debate by examining the role that cultural factors, particularly racial thinking, played in shaping the American decision. Walker 2004 presents a balanced synthesis of the existing literature surrounding the American decision to use the bombs and concludes that, although the move was necessary, the rationales provided by Truman were not grounded in the reality of the situation.

Alperovitz, Gar. The Decision to Use the Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth. London: HarperCollins, 1995.
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Alperovitz maintains, with greater—although, at times, selective—documentary evidence, that an anti-Soviet ideology played the central role in the American decision to drop the bombs in 1945 in this expansion of his thesis first put forward in 1965.
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Bernstein, Barton J. “Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the ‘Decision.’” Journal of Military History 62 (July 1998): 547–570.
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Contends that decisions made under the Roosevelt administration must be considered and that the high level of anti-Soviet sentiment in the Truman administration must not be discounted when considering Truman’s decision, by examining the most-cited documentary evidence.
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The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
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An online collection of materials held by the Truman Library relating to Truman’s decision to utilize the atomic bomb and subsequent defense of his actions. The website also includes several oral histories from officials in the Truman administration.
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Giangreco, D. M. “Casualty Projections for the U.S. Invasions of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications.” Journal of Military History 61 (July 1997): 521–582.
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Argues that the US War Department’s assertion that casualties of an invasion of Japan could surpass one million became an unquestioned truth in the Truman administration and led Truman to view the bomb as the only possible alternative to invasion.
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Malloy, Sean L. Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb against Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008.
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A brief biography of Henry L. Stimson that examines how his personal values influenced his relationship to American atomic power and ultimately his failure to exert strong leadership over the American decision to drop the bomb.
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Malloy, Sean L. “Harry S. Truman and the Decision to Use the Bomb.” In A Companion to Harry S. Truman. Edited by Daniel S. Margolies, 67–87. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
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A concise examination of the literature on the decision to drop the bomb that highlights both the revisionist and traditional interpretations as well as providing commentary on works that move beyond the traditional diplomatic approach in dealing with the topic.
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Newman, Robert P. Truman and the Hiroshima Cult. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995.
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Argues that revisionists seek to turn Japan from villain to victim and maintains that the rationale provided by Truman and others is the only acceptable explanation of the American decision to use the bomb.
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Takaki, Ronald. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Bomb. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.
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Demonstrates that a complex web of issues lies at the center of the American decision to drop the bomb but that the powerful role of racial thinking must not be underestimated when discussing why Truman ordered the use of the bomb.
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Walker, Samuel J. Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan. Rev. ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
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A balanced look at the American decision to use the bombs that does not introduce any new material or conclusions but avoids the polemics of other works.
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The Japanese Decision to Surrender

A central debate among historians is what effect the atom bombs had on the Japanese decision to surrender on 15 August, 1945. The standard interpretation is that the bombs were the key factors in forcing the Japanese government to halt fighting. However, differing interpretations, beginning in the 1960s, started to question this orthodoxy. Some began to argue that the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan on 8 August, 1945, proved to be the crucial factor in influencing the decision to surrender. Oftentimes, discussion of surrender forms an important corollary to the decision to drop the bombs in the first place as revisionist historians argue that prior to 6 August, 1945, the Japanese government had begun to make overtures to the Allies, through the then-neutral Soviet government, about a negotiated peace. Others have pointed to the efforts of minor Japanese officials to contact the American government through other neutral intermediaries to arrange a negotiated surrender. Asada 1998 seeks to reconstruct the Japanese decision-making process between 6 August and 14 August that led to its surrender by focusing on the shock effect of the bombs on the peace bloc within the Japanese government; the study represents a traditional focus on the centrality of the bombs. Bix 1995 contends that Emperor Hirohito played a central role in prolonging the war in the Pacific by his hawkish support of the military. Butow 1954 presents the first Western analysis of the struggle between peace advocates and those within the Japanese military who wished to prolong the war and discusses the important role of the throne, rather than the figure of Emperor Hirohito himself, in breaking the deadlock between the two sides. Frank 2013 focuses on literature since 1995 in order to map out current trends in the historiography of the Japanese decision to surrender. Hasegawa 2005 presents the first major work that examines in detail the role of the Soviet Union in the Japanese decision to surrender, utilizing declassified Soviet documents to reveal that Soviet participation and interest in the end of the Pacific War was not a last-minute action. Hasegawa 2007 attempts to move the discussion away from its traditional American focus to a more Japanese-centered study. Koshiro 2004 posits that Japan’s surrender was the result of a highly calculated gamble to ensure the nation revived as quickly as possible after the war. Sigal 1988 presents a more theoretical discussion of how the bureaucratic nature of the American and Japanese governments precluded a quick ending to the war in the Pacific.

Asada, Sadao. “The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration.” Pacific Historical Review 67 (November 1998): 477–512.
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Differentiates between defeat and surrender when reconstructing the process by which the Japanese government decided to surrender to the Western powers. Asada grants the bomb’s shock effect had a central role in propelling Japan to conclude the war.
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Bix, Herbert P. “Japan’s Delayed Surrender: A Reinterpretation.” Diplomatic History 19 (Spring 1995): 197–225.
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Bix contends that, contrary to the traditional view of Hirohito as aloof from the workings of government, the emperor played a central role in delaying Japan’s surrender that was a fait accompli by August 1945.
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Butow, Robert J. C. Japan’s Decision to Surrender. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1954.
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This is the first significant study of the Japanese decision to surrender in the West. Butow posits that the ultimate reason for Japan’s surrender was the Allies finally defined what was meant by the phrase “unconditional surrender” postulated at Potsdam.
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Frank, Richard B. “Ending the Pacific War: The New History.” In A Companion to World War II. Edited by Thomas W. Zeiler, 387–401. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
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A comprehensive review of literature surrounding the ending of the war in the Pacific, with a particular emphasis on literature published since 1995 in order to establish a more nuanced view of the issue than older literature divided along an orthodox/revisionist dichotomy.
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Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
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Argues that Soviet entry into the Pacific War on August 8 was as equally important as the dropping of the atomic bombs in forcing the surrender of Japan. Also argues that the American use of the bomb was motivated by the wish to avoid Soviet entry into the Pacific theatre.
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Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, ed. The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
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A collection of seven essays from both American and Japanese scholars that seeks to place the Japanese at the center of making the decision to surrender, rather than reacting to American actions in August 1945. The volume also gives special prominence to the role of the Soviet entry into the war.
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Koshiro, Yukiko. “Eurasian Eclipse: Japan’s End Game in World War II.” American Historical Review 109 (April 2004): 417–444.
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Argues that the Japanese carefully orchestrated the process of surrender to encourage a balance between the United States and the Soviet Union in East Asia in order to facilitate the creation of a “new open door policy” in the region that would help Japan recover quickly from the war.
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Sigal, Leon V. Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
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Places blame for the prolonging of the war in the Pacific equally on the American and Japanese governments as the various American service branches competed to claim who had “won” the war, whereas in Japan, various government elements sought to pass “blame” for defeat onto their opponents.
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Key Figures

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often defined by key individuals who figured prominently in the creation of the bombs, their use, and the reaction to them. Much writing on the topic explores the role of these key individuals and how they shaped the events of August 1945. The list of key figures can vary, but discussions generally focus on Harry S. Truman and Henry L. Stimson in reaching the decision to unleash the atom bomb; Leslie R. Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Edward Teller in creating the bombs and the debate over their use; and Emperor Hirohito and Marquis Kōichi Kido in making the Japanese decision to surrender. Bird and Sherwin 2005 presents an extensive, though sympathetic, portrait of J. Robert Oppenheimer; its discussion of the Manhattan Project covers well-trodden ground but presents a more in-depth picture of Oppenheimer’s role among the scientists than do other biographies. Ferrell 1994 offers a detailed biography of Harry S. Truman based on extensive research in the Truman Library and offers new insights into several key moments of Truman’s presidency. Goodchild 2004 serves as a biography of Edward Teller but also explores the growing relationship between the American scientific community and defense establishment in the mid-20th century. Kido 1984 presents translated selections from Marquis Kōichi Kido’s personal diary. Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, played a crucial role in the development of Japanese policy leading into World War II as well as convincing the Japanese government to accept the surrender terms of the Allied powers. Lanouette 1992 is a comprehensive biography of the often-overlooked Leo Szilard, which details the crucial role that Szilard played in creating the Manhattan Project as well as the ambivalent relationship he developed with atomic power. Large 1992 is a balanced examination of Emperor Hirohito and his role in Japanese political life during the war, showing that Hirohito lacked the political finesse to control the events that culminated in the bombings of August 1945. Malloy 2002 is the most extensive examination of Henry L. Stimson’s life and his role in the American decision to use atomic weapons. Norris 2002 is a lengthy treatment of Leslie R. Groves that predominantly focuses on his role in the Manhattan Project but also offers insight into his life in the pre- and postwar periods. Tibbets 1978 presents the author’s viewpoint on the dropping of the bomb and his personal feelings toward the use of the bomb.

Bird, Kai, and Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. New York: Knopf, 2005.
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The result of twenty-five years of research, American Prometheus offers a detailed account of Oppenheimer’s role in the Manhattan Project but is sometimes flawed by the authors’ admiration for their subject that detracts from their impartiality, especially when discussing Oppenheimer’s postwar security trial.
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Ferrell, Robert H. Harry S. Truman: A Life. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994.
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Presents a generally orthodox discussion of the issue of the atom bombs by arguing that their use represented the quickest way to end the war and spare American lives that would be lost in an invasion.
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Goodchild, Peter. Edward Teller: The Real Dr. Strangelove. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
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Utilizes Teller as representative of the growing bond between science and the military in 20th-century America. Goodchild does a solid job of laying out the divisions that arose among Teller, Oppenheimer, and others over the use, and continued expansion, of atomic power.
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Kido, Kōichi. The Diary of Marquis Kido, 1931–45: Selected Translations into English. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984.
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Published as two volumes in Japan in 1966, this selection of excerpts from Kido’s personal diary offers unique insights into how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki affected one of the key advisers to Emperor Hirohito.
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Lanouette, William. Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man behind the Bomb. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
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Relying heavily on Szilard’s personal papers and interviews with his brother Bela, Lanouette chronicles the crucial role that Szilard played in pushing for the development of the Manhattan Project and his efforts in 1945 to head off a possible atomic arms race with the Soviets.
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Large, Stephen S. Emperor Hirohito and Shōwa Japan: A Political Biography. London: Routledge, 1992.
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Large portrays Hirohito’s rule as a series of missed opportunities to curb the growing power of the military in the 1930s, largely because of his political views about his position as a constitutional monarch. In discussing Hiroshima, Large argues that the bombings were morally wrong and militarily unnecessary.
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Malloy, Sean L. “The Reluctant Warrior: Henry L. Stimson and the Crisis of ‘Industrial Civilization.’” PhD diss., Stanford University, 2002.
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One of the most complete treatments of Stimson and his service in American government, this dissertation served as the basis for the more-focused Malloy 2008, cited under the American Decision to Drop the Bomb.
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Norris, Robert S. Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth, 2002.
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A lengthy examination of Groves’s role as director of the Manhattan Project in which Norris concludes that, in the end, the use of the atomic bombs was justified in ending the war, with any anti-Soviet considerations playing a very minor role for Groves.
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Tibbets, Paul W. The Tibbets Story. New York: Stein and Day, 1978.
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This autobiography chronicles Tibbets’s life with a particular focus on the centrality of the bombing of Hiroshima in his personal life.
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The Cold War

Beginning in the mid-1960s, historians began to reassess the traditional interpretation offered for the use of the atomic bombs against Japan in 1945. The first major attempt at revising the orthodox interpretation of Hiroshima was Alperovitz 1967 (first published in 1965) which established the basic outline of the revisionist argument; that is, the decision to utilize the atomic bombs was motivated not by a desire to end the Pacific War quickly but rather the Truman administration’s desire to make the Soviets more pliant in the postwar world. Much of the literature since 1965 has been in opposition to Alperovitz’s claim. Bernstein 1975 maintains that the bombs were used primarily to end the war but does acknowledge that their use played a role, one of many, in shaping the Cold War relationship between the two superpowers. Craig and Radchenko 2008 maintains that the atomic bomb did not ensure that the Cold War took place but it did ensure that the form it took was because it exacerbated the wartime tensions between the two states. Herken 1980 examines the ways in which American policymakers viewed the atomic bomb as a tool of foreign policy to either threaten or goad the Soviets into what Washington considered acceptable behavior. Maddox 1973 directly challenges the assertions of Alperovitz 1967 and raises serious questions concerning the methodology utilized by Alperovitz 1967. Miscamble 2007 supports Bernstein 1975 in arguing that Harry Truman did not move radically away from the policies of his predecessor in dealing with the Soviet Union and that the use of the atom bombs had little, if anything, to do with intimidating the Soviet Union. Miscamble 2011 presents the most succinct presentation of the orthodox arguments up to that time and portrays Secretary of State James Byrnes in a more positive light than revisionist historians. Sherwin 2003 details the complex relationship among the scientific community that created the bomb, the American and British governments that controlled the use of the weapon, and the possible role in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Sherwin supports the orthodox position that the bombs were used to end the war, but he also points out that many in the West, both scientists and policymakers, believed that the atomic bomb would have a positive effect on influencing Soviet behavior in the postwar period.

Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: The Use of the Atomic Bomb and the American Confrontation with Soviet Power. New York: Vintage, 1967.
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A reprinting of his 1965 work, Alperovitz posits that Harry Truman’s ascension to the presidency marked a change in American attitudes toward the Soviet Union and that the decision to use the atomic bomb was driven by distrust of the postwar aims of the Soviets.
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Bernstein, Barton J. “Roosevelt, Truman, and the Atomic Bomb, 1941–1945: A Reinterpretation.” Political Science Quarterly 90 (Spring 1975): 23–69.
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Posits that Truman’s atomic policies were ones that he inherited from his predecessor and that Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to exclude the Soviets from the development of the atomic bomb indicated his concern about the postwar relationship between the two powers.
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Craig, Campbell, and Sergey Radchenko. The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
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Contends that the American attitudes toward the Soviets since the early 1940s bear primary responsibility for starting the Cold War. Straddles between an orthodox and revisionist interpretation by arguing that Hiroshima was meant to end the Pacific War but Nagasaki was solely intended to cow the Soviet Union.
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Herken, Gregg. The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945–1950. New York: Knopf, 1980.
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Demonstrates how American policymakers saw the atomic bomb as an opportunity to shape the postwar world in an idealistic fashion and how the inability to do this led to American efforts to monopolize atomic power, raising tension with the Soviet Union.
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Maddox, Robert James. “Atomic Diplomacy: A Study in Creative Writing.” Journal of American History 59 (March 1973): 925–934.
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Laid out the basic counterarguments to the revisionist thesis by pointing out flaws in the methodology and sources used by Alperovitz 1967, but also helped to establish tradition whereby all following literature had to respond in some form to the revisionist thesis.
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Miscamble, Wilson D. From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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In agreement with Bernstein 1975, Miscamble details how American views on the relationship between atomic power and the policies of the United States and the Soviet Union were effectively established during the Roosevelt presidency and how Truman worked within this established pattern during his first two years in office.
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Miscamble, Wilson D. The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511977336Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Attempts to move the debate beyond the orthodox/revisionist split, but still falls into the pattern of responding to the major points of Alperovitz 1967 and Alperovitz 1995, cited under the American Decision to Drop the Bomb.
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Sherwin, Martin J. A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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First published in 1975 and then expanded in 1987, Sherwin chronicles the development of American efforts to maintain an atomic monopoly and how this contributed to the creation of a new form of diplomacy—atomic diplomacy.
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The Effect on Military Strategy

The use of the atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki was revolutionary on multiple levels, not least on military strategy. From 1945 forward, nations had to factor their policies to take account of the presence and possible utilization of atomic weapons. The existing literature often examines the topic in either a very broad manner or more specifically in the context of the development of an American nuclear policy. Clark 1985 argues that modern nuclear strategy is still driven by the perceived lessons of Hiroshima, many of which, Clark argues, are incorrect. He maintains that the perception of the decision to use the bombs was governed by a rational process is a major impediment to rational nuclear policy in modern times. Freedman 1983 goes further than Clark 1985 by presenting a history of the development of nuclear strategy, mainly in the United States, but also with some consideration of the Soviet Union and European powers. He lays out three major trends that have animated the seeming cyclical nature of debate about nuclear strategy since 1945. Gray 1994 examines the role that American culture played in helping to shape American nuclear policy since 1945 by outlining eight central cultural precepts that have defined American strategy since Hiroshima. Jones 2010 complements Gray 1994 by examining the role of cultural norms in the development of American nuclear strategy—importantly, American ideas about race and how these ideas actually served to limit American nuclear strategy in Asia. Rose 1980 presents a case study of the development of nuclear strategy by the American Army between 1945 and 1980, primarily on the tactical level and maintains that Army strategy has been driven more by politics than by the realities of a potential nuclear conflict. Sherry 1995 echoes Gray 1994 in delineating the role of American culture in shaping American military strategy, although Sherry 1995 argues that the roots of American military policy were planted prior to World War II and did not grow in response to the Cold War. Steiner 1991 presents a study of the influence of Bernard Brodie, the American military strategist, on the development of American nuclear strategy through an examination of his writings rather than through a biographical examination. Weigley 1973 outlines the drastic effect that atomic weapons had on the evolution of a unique American strategy of war, in effect serving to complicate a fairly straightforward mindset put in place by Ulysses S. Grant and Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Clark, Ian. Nuclear Past, Nuclear Present: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Contemporary Strategy. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985.
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Studies the influence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the formation of modern nuclear strategy and argues that the bomb was not decisive in ending the war or saving lives, thus clouding the relationship between the events of August 1945 and modern nuclear problems.
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Freedman, Lawrence. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. London: Macmillan, 1983.
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Identifies three main impulses in the formation of modern nuclear strategy: to exploit the destructive power of atomic weapons to make war unthinkable, to deny enemies atomic capabilities in the form of first-strike capability, and to attempt to minimize the destructive power of atomic weapons through smaller yields.
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Gray, Colin S. “Strategy in the Nuclear Age: The United States, 1945–1991.” In The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War. Edited by Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin H. Bernstein, 579–613. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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Argues that American nuclear policy has been successful because it has been based on culturally accepted norms and has also been very successful at meeting its goals despite seeming blunders made by American policymakers.
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Jones, Matthew. After Hiroshima: The United States, Race, and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945–1965. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511712197Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Critiques American reliance on nuclear weapons in the early Cold War by pointing out that both strategic and cultural limitations made the use of nuclear weapons in Asia unthinkable, thus undercutting the rationale of the Eisenhower New Look defense policy.
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Rose, John P. The Evolution of U.S. Army Nuclear Doctrine, 1945–1980. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980.
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Uses the development of Army nuclear doctrine to examine the role that domestic politics has played in shaping American nuclear policies in contrast to the realities of a potential nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union at the time.
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Sherry, Michael S. In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
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Maintains that the emergence of an American military culture had nothing to do with the emergence of atomic weapons and the ensuing Cold War but rather had its roots in a complex cultural relationship between the American people and the American government that emerged during the New Deal.
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Steiner, Barry H. Bernard Brodie and the Foundations of American Nuclear Strategy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991.
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An examination of Bernard Brodie’s writings on nuclear strategy that aims to establish which of Brodie’s ideas still maintains relevance in modern nuclear strategy and which ideas are now untenable.
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Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.
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Contends that the traditional American way of war, seeking to destroy an enemy’s forces in a decisive battle, perfected under Grant and Mahan was overturned by the emergence of atomic weapons that forced for the first time the creation of a more systematic and constrained American military policy.
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Survivor Accounts

Among the most gripping aspects of studying the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the numerous accounts prepared by survivors of the atomic blasts. Many of the survivor accounts present a personal perspective to a topic that is often impersonal in its focus on decision-making processes and scientific research. Many accounts have been published in Japanese since the late 1940s with a growing number translated into English over the decades. A sizeable body of literature on survivors has been prepared by Western academics and journalists since the bombing that supplements the more personal narratives provided by the Japanese survivors, known as hibakusha and legally defined by the Japanese government in 1957 with the passage of the Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law. Bird and Lifschultz 1998 presents a useful overview of survivor literature in section 5 that focuses on the historical memory of Hiroshima. Lifton 1967 draws on the experiences of seventy-five survivors to try to correlate the long-term psychological effects that the bombing had on the populace of the city with a particular emphasis on Japanese intellectuals. Minear 1990 presents the responses of three Japanese writers relating how they survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, with two of the three works being translated for the first time from Japanese into English. The National Peace Memorial Halls for the Atomic Bomb Victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki includes a sizeable array of both written and oral accounts by survivors of both bombings that help to supplement the more intellectual focus of Lifton 1967 and Minear 1990. Ogura 1997 is a reprinting of the first survivor account of Hiroshima that appeared in Japan and fits into the basic pattern of being from the perspective of a Japanese intellectual in detailing the immediate bombing and the effects of the bomb in the weeks afterwards. Osada 1963 presents a collection of accounts from an array of Japanese schoolchildren ranging from elementary school to university in order to deliver a highly moralistic interpretation of the bombing. Snider 1996 presents the autobiography of a young Japanese woman who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and later immigrated to the United States, providing a unique perspective on the bombing from other survivor accounts.

Bird, Kai, and Lawrence Lifschultz. Hiroshima’s Shadow. Stony Creek, CT: Pamphleteer’s, 1998.
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A broad overview of the historical memory of the bombing of Hiroshima. Section 5 (pp. 415–484) focuses on survivor accounts with particular emphasis on those of Shuntaro Hida, Tamiki Hara, and Hideko Tamura Snider.
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Lifton, Robert Jay. Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. New York: Random House, 1967.
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A psychological study of the long-term effects of the bombing on survivors, Lifton focuses on two groups of survivors—one chosen at random and the other chosen from Japanese intellectuals—in an effort to determine both a basic human understanding of the events as well as a Japanese response.
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Minear, Richard H., ed. and trans. Hiroshima: Three Witnesses. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
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The volume gives the first full English translation of Hara Tamiki’s and Ōta Yōko’s accounts of the bombing as well as a new translation of Tōge Sankichi’s Poems of the Atomic Bomb.
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The National Peace Memorial Halls for the Atomic Bomb Victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Useful for its inclusion of survivor accounts from Nagasaki, the website offers both written and oral accounts of Japanese survivors from a wide range of age groups; however, users must be aware of potential biases in presentation.
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Ogura, Toyofumi. Letters from the End of the World: A Firsthand Account of the Bombing of Hiroshima. Translated by Kisaburo Murakami and Shigeru Fujii. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1997.
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First printed in Japan in 1948, Ogura’s letters were the first survivor account that received widespread publication. A collection of letters to his wife, who died of radiation sickness a few weeks after the bombing, Ogura’s account is notable for the blame placed on the Japanese government for the bombing.
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Osada, Arata, ed. Children of the A-Bomb: The Testament of the Boys and Girls of Hiroshima. Translated by Jean Dan and Ruth Sieben-Morgen. New York: Putnam, 1963.
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Originally published in Japan in 1959, this collection of survivor accounts focuses on the experiences of Japanese youth in Hiroshima and covers both the bombing itself and the aftermath as survivors tried to make sense of the event they had experienced.
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Snider, Hideko Tamura. One Sunny Day: A Child’s Memories of Hiroshima. Chicago: Open Court, 1996.
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Snider presents an account of her experiences as a young child having lived through the atomic blast at Hiroshima. Notable for its discussion of the author’s transition into American society in the 1950s and the perspective that this gave her on her experiences at Hiroshima.
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Morality of the Bombings

Inherent in examining the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the moral implications of the atomic bomb. In the aftermath of the bombings, American officials such as Henry Stimson and Harry Truman provided a moral rationale for their decision to utilize the bombs. Subsequent study of the moral and ethical dimensions of the subject has revealed a deeply divided and polarized response to the issue. Bess 2006 provides a moral history of World War II in which it places the bomb into the context of the morality of the time. Bess points out that the increasing barbarity of the war makes the use of the bombs morally understandable, if not agreeable. Burleigh 2011 complements Bess 2006 by investigating how the changing nature of total war helped to reshape the moral and ethical codes of the societies involved in the war, one Burleigh sees as being necessary to combat the evils of Nazism. He points out that the morality of the bombs must be judged by the fact that the decision to use them was cumulative and not individual. Cotkin 2010 argues that the expanded use of area bombing made the use of the atom bomb acceptable in the moral context of the time. He maintains that, rather than speaking in absolutes about the morality of the bombings, it is more beneficial to recognize that the bomb was the choice between varying degrees of evil, the other being an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Lifton and Mitchell 1995 provides a strong moral condemnation of the bomb’s use by arguing that it created a moral inversion in which the weapon now became a preserver, rather than a destroyer, of life and allowed for the creation of more and more powerful weapons after 1945. Schaffer 1985 maintains that the decision to use the bombs flowed from an evolutionary moral process among American military planners who increasingly saw “morale bombing” as the swiftest way to end the war and save American lives. Walzer 1977 provided an early condemnation of the bombings as violating the precept of proportional response and argues the use of unconditional surrender made either the bomb or an invasion a foregone conclusion. Winters 2009 presents the idea that any discussion of the morality of the bombings must take into account the actions of the Japanese government and concludes that Japan’s unwillingness to accept surrender and its determination to carry on the war made Hiroshima morally possible, although regrettable.

Bess, Michael. Choices under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: Knopf, 2006.
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Bess supports the traditional interpretation that the use of the atomic bombs helped in the long run to save both American and Japanese lives that would have been lost in an invasion. Argues that the great moral failure was in the absence of discussion of the nonuse of the bombs.
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Burleigh, Michael. Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.
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Similar to Bess 2006, Burleigh supports an orthodox interpretation of the moral decision to use the bombs against Japan.
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Cotkin, George. Morality’s Muddy Waters: Ethical Quandaries in Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
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A larger study of morally nuanced episodes in American history, Cotkin answers the moral question posed by Bess 2006 by arguing that the evolving concept of total war did not allow the question of nonuse to emerge.
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Lifton, Robert Jay, and Greg Mitchell. Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial. New York: Putnam, 1995.
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Lifton and Mitchell see the use of the bombs as a moral wrong in the context of its long-term effects on American policy toward atomic weapons. They argue that Hiroshima led Americans to adopt a defensive attitude toward atomic weapons; otherwise, Hiroshima would be considered retroactively immoral.
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Schaffer, Ronald. Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
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An examination of how American Air Force officials in World War II weighed moral concerns when planning the American bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan. Schaffer sees Hiroshima as the culmination of a moral process that began with the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo.
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Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York: Basic Books, 1977.
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Attempts to reemphasize the moral importance of the concept of the “just war” for modern society. Walzer unequivocally sees Hiroshima as a moral crime that violated many of the basic precepts of the just war.
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Winters, Francis X. Remembering Hiroshima: Was It Just? Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009.
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Examines the relationship between the United States and Japan since 1853 to understand the morality of the bombing. Argues that the interaction between the two countries propelled Japan on a path of empire-building to defend itself that reinforced its unwillingness to surrender in 1945 and hence made Hiroshima possible.
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The Bombings in Literature

The cultural effects of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been far-reaching both in Japan and in the United States. Visual art, theatre, film, and fiction have all been influenced by the bombings of the two cities. Interestingly, of all the art forms that have been touched by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, literature has been the form least utilized to convey the cultural meaning of the bombings to both Japanese and Western audiences. This seeming gap in the memory of the bombings is conveyed in the existing literature. Agee 1946 represents one of the few Western works of fiction that deals directly with Hiroshima and its cultural legacy for Americans and is often overlooked in the discussion of the cultural legacy of the bombings. Goodman 1986 presents four Japanese plays, spanning between 1955 and 1969, in which the bombings and their effects on Japanese society are central to the stories. Each play is prefaced by a brief biography of the playwright and, importantly, a short contextual essay for Western readers. Ōe 1985 is a collection of nine short stories by Japanese authors arranged in chronological order, with the earlier stories dealing with the immediate effects of the bombings and the latter dealing with the cultural legacy for Japanese society. Selden and Selden 1989 gives a broad overview of the role of the bombings on various forms of Japanese literature from novellas to poetry and includes both previously published material as well as works published in the West for the first time. Ōe 1985, by presenting an explanation of the cultural aesthetics of Japanese literature, helps to make Selden and Selden 1989 more understandable to Western readers. Treat 1995 provides the most comprehensive overview of the relationship between the atom bombs and Japanese literature through the 1980s. This work is a more scholarly study of the literature that has been produced by both survivors of the bombings and their cultural successors in modern Japan and provides an important theoretical framework for interpreting the works presented by Goodman 1986, Ōe 1985, and Selden and Selden 1989.

Agee, James. “Dedication Day: Rough Sketch for a Moving Picture.” Politics (April 1946): 121–124.
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A fictional account of the dedication of a memorial to “the greatest of human achievements,” (p. 121) meaning the American bombing of Hiroshima. The story reveals the deep ambiguity that had begun to creep into American culture by the late 1940s over the use of atomic power.
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Goodman, David G., ed. After Apocalypse: Four Japanese Plays of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
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The four plays contained in the text present four unique perspectives on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whereas the introductory essays give sound historical background to the individual authors and the cultural landscape in which they produced their works.
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Ōe, Kenzaburō, ed. The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath. New York: Grove, 1985.
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An excellent introduction for Western readers on how Japanese literature has attempted to translate the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into fiction.
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Selden, Kyoko, and Mark Selden, eds. The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. London: Sharpe, 1989.
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A broader overview of the various forms of Japanese literature and their dealings with the atom bomb than the more narrowly focused Ōe 1985. The introductory essay provides a concise introduction to several of the major historical questions surrounding the bombing of the cities.
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Treat, John Whittier. Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
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Attempts to present atomic bomb literature as its own form of literature rather than simply as extensions or representations of established forms in Japanese literature. Provides the most comprehensive overview of the role of the atom bomb in Japanese literature.
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The Bombings in Film

Unlike the paucity of direct coverage in literature, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have figured prominently in cinema since 1945. Much of the literature has dealt with the attempt by Japanese filmmakers to place the bombings in an understandable cultural framework; however, a sizeable body of literature has explored the role of the American occupation in censoring visual representations of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years immediately following the end of the war. Barnouw 1982 details how the first footage of Hiroshima, taken by a Japanese film crew, was at first censored and then appropriated by American occupation forces demonstrating one of the important elements of the issue of the bombings in film: Japanese concern with the human effects and the American concern with the scientific and military effects. Braw 1991 provides a lengthy study of the creation and imposition of American occupation censorship policy between 1945 and 1949 and, like Barnouw 1982, details the dual nature of the American and Japanese visual experience with Hiroshima. Broderick 1996 focuses on the long-term effects of the bombing of Hiroshima on Japanese cinema with each essay in the collection demonstrating the centrality of the experiences of Hiroshima in Japanese film. Hirano 1992 builds on Braw 1991 by exploring American censorship into the early 1950s and offers a generally orthodox interpretation of American occupation policies, particularly regarding images of Hiroshima. Loader, et al. 2002 presents a documentary overview of the advent of the atomic age from Hiroshima through the early 1960s in order to demonstrate the centrality of Hiroshima and the atomic bomb in American culture, which draws a strong parallel with Broderick 1996 and its focus on Japanese cinema. Okazaki 2007 demonstrates the traditional Japanese interest in the human effects of the bombing but also stands as an attempt to turn back a seemingly cultural amnesia among both young Japanese and young Americans concerning the bombings. Shaheen 1978 presents a collection of essays that deals with the topic of atomic power and war in both feature films and documentaries with the topic of Hiroshima figuring prominently in several of the essays.

Barnouw, Erik. “The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Footage: A Report.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 2 (1982): 91–100.
DOI: 10.1080/01439688200260061Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces how the documentary Hiroshima-Nagasaki, August 1945 came into the public consciousness in the 1970s after having been suppressed by censors during the occupation of Japan.
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Braw, Monica. The Atomic Bomb Suppressed: American Censorship in Occupied Japan. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1991.
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Highlights the irony of American occupation censorship by pointing out that it was the bombing of Hiroshima that effectively destroyed the tradition of censorship that had existed under the Japanese government prior to 1945.
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Broderick, Mick, ed. Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film. London: Kegan Paul International, 1996.
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A collection of essays that demonstrates the centrality of the memory of Hiroshima for Japanese cinema with many of the essays focusing on works of popular directors such as Akira Kurosawa rather than on earlier and lesser-known works.
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Hirano, Kyōko. Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: Japanese Cinema under the American Occupation, 1945–1952. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1992.
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Focuses on the relationship between Japanese film and American occupation censorship policies as a wider lens to examine the attempts by the United States to democratize Japan in the aftermath of World War II.
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Loader, Jayne, Kevin Rafferty, and Pierce Rafferty, dirs. The Atomic Café, 1982. DVD. New York: New Video Group, 2002.
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Uses archival footage of atomic tests, civil defense films, and interviews with figures such as Paul Tibbets to demonstrate the ambiguous relationship that American culture had with atomic power in the aftermath of Hiroshima and through the 1960s.
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Okazaki, Steven. White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. DVD. New York: HBO Home Video, 2007.
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A documentary study of the bombing of Hiroshima, the film includes interviews with fourteen survivors as well as four Americans who participated in the bombing mission over Hiroshima. Highlights the traditional split between Japanese concern with the human effects and American seeming disinterest.
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Shaheen, Jack G., ed. Nuclear War Films. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978.
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Essay collection that attempts to present both aesthetic and historical discussions of the portrayal of nuclear war in film. It is notable for its discussion of Hiroshima in the section on documentaries and short films (pp. 83–172).
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The Atomic Bomb in American Culture

Since 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have figured prominently in American culture, but often the interlinking between the bombings and American cultural movements has been more diffuse and shadowy than in Japanese culture. This is reflected in the existing literature that generally adopts a broad approach in examining the effects of the atom bombs on American culture. Boyer 1985 established the model for exploring how American culture was defined by atomic power between 1945 and 1950. Boyer demonstrates that debates about atomic power was not isolated to a few elite policymakers and scientists but rather was a widespread part of American society in the five years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that Americans moved from a position of fear to acceptance, and even adoration, of atomic power. Mariner and Piehler 2009 presents several essays that demonstrate further the wide-reaching cultural effects of the atom bomb on American society, ranging from topics such as reactions of women to the bombs to portrayals of atomic attacks in American films in the 1950s to the complexities of preserving facilities, such as those in Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, that figured prominently in America’s atomic program. Mueller 2010 critiques the American preoccupation with atomic weapons since 1945 and the policies this had led the United States to adopt since then. Scott and Geist 1997 offers a complement to Mariner and Piehler 2009 by presenting a collection of essays detailing the attempt in American culture to make sense of the new atomic age. In addition, the collection of essays by Scott and Geist 1997 differentiates itself from Mariner and Piehler 2009 in that the focus is more on popular culture—particularly, American film, television, music, and literature—rather than on a wide survey of American society. Szasz 2012 presents a more focused study of the attempt in American popular culture to wrestle with atomic power by exploring how American comics sought to make atomic power understandable to the average American. Weart 1988 echoes Szasz 2012 by concentrating solely on visual images rather than on a broader study of atomic power and culture as do Boyer 1985 and Mariner and Piehler 2009. Spanning 1902 through the late 1980s, Weart 1988 explores, to some degree, how global culture interpreted the idea of atomic power and argues that culture often gave meaning to the idea of atomic power rather than the other way. Yavenditti 1974 explores the centrality of John Hersey’s Hiroshima (Hersey 1985, cited under General Overviews) to the American cultural understanding of Hiroshima and provides a more narrowly defined case study that explores the relationship between atomic power and American cultural understanding.

Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
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Demonstrates that current debates over nuclear power and the debates that raged in American culture between 1945 and 1950 are based on many of the same questions and suppositions within the American cultural mind.
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Mariner, Rosemary, and G. Kurt Piehler. The Atomic Bomb and American Society: New Perspectives. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2009.
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Of particular interest in the collection are the essays by Paul Boyer on sixty-five years of nuclear themes in American culture, Robert Hunter on nuclear terror in 1950s films, and Judy Barrett Litoff on American women’s interpretations of atomic power.
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Mueller, John E. Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to al-Qaeda. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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Argues that the rhetoric that has surrounded atomic weapons since Hiroshima has been far more damaging to international relations and American policy than the weapons themselves because it encourages hastily and needlessly aggressive policies on the part of powers such as the United States.
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Scott, Alison M., and Christopher D. Geist. The Writing on the Cloud: American Culture Confronts the Bomb. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997.
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Based on the proceedings of the 1995 conference “The Atomic Age Opens: American Culture Confronts the Atomic Bomb,” this collection of essays focuses on the prevalence and interpretation of atomic power in American popular culture as the central theme in American culture since 1945.
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Szasz, Ferenc Morton. Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2012.
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Argues that comics’ popularity in the 1940s and 1950s made them an indispensable resource in understanding how American culture interpreted atomic power and provided a powerful agent in disseminating those cultural understandings to average Americans.
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Weart, Spencer R. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
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Examines how the cultural imagery of atomic power was, until the 1960s, centered on the twin ideas of hope and fear. However, after the early 1960s, this bipolar view was lost as images of fear became the predominant cultural vision of atomic power.
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Yavenditti, Michael J. “John Hersey and the American Conscience: The Reception of ‘Hiroshima.’” Pacific Historical Review 43 (February 1974): 24–49.
DOI: 10.2307/3637589Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Details the role that Hiroshima, Hersey 1985 (cited under General Overviews), played in reviving American debate over the morality of the atom bombs and how Americans culturally came to understand atomic power.
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The Bombings and Historical Memory

Even in the early 21st century, more than sixty years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both events still exercise a powerful grip on the historical memory of both Japan and the United States. This fact was amply demonstrated in the controversy that erupted in 1995 over a proposed exhibit concerning the Enola Gay and the end of World War II at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, DC. The majority of the writing dealing with the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki falls into either general studies of memory and the bombings or specific studies that focus on the 1995 controversy and what these have taught us about memory and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Harwitt 1996 presents a behind-the-scenes account of the Enola Gay controversy from the former director of the National Air and Space Museum that details the events that led to the exhibit’s cancellation and Harwitt’s resignation over the issue. It is most useful for the insight that it offers into the process by which museum exhibits are constructed. Hogan 1996 presents a collection of essays, many from the Spring 1995 pages of the journal Diplomatic History, that focuses on the debate over the memory of Hiroshima and how it could have, or should have been, memorialized, specifically in the context of the Enola Gay controversy. Jeans 2005 explores how the debate over whether the Japanese were victims or victimizers during World War II has played out in presentations in Japanese museums and in Japanese textbooks. Lifton and Mitchell 1995 dedicates half of its work to the debate over memory surrounding Hiroshima, presenting a broader discussion of memory and Hiroshima than had previous works, and demonstrates that the debate over the Enola Gay exhibit in 1995 was based on many of the same questions that had been raised in 1945 after the bombs’ initial use. Linenthal and Englehardt 1996 places the controversy in a larger historical context in a series of essays that seek to understand the relationship between the public and its perception of history. Newman 2004 links the NASM controversy to the long-standing historiographic divide between orthodox and revisionist interpretations and argues that the NASM wrongly chose to follow a revisionist model, leading to the exhibit’s cancellation. Yoneyama 1999 examines how memory of the bombings within the city of Hiroshima has been continually remolded since 1945 and has often been influenced by elements of Japanese society and culture that existed prior to 1945.

Harwitt, Martin. An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of the Enola Gay. New York: Copernicus, 1996.
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4684-7905-8Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Readers must be cautious of potential biases based on the author’s close relationship to the NASM controversy, but the work offers intriguing insights into the larger questions of the role of public history and the sources that mold memory for the wider public.
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Hogan, Michael J. Hiroshima in History and Memory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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Notable among the collected essays are those by John Dower, Paul Boyer, and Michael Hogan that examine Japanese memory of Hiroshima, American memory of the bombings, and the debate over the presentation of the Enola Gay, respectively. Also provides a useful primer for the historiographic debates over Hiroshima.
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Jeans, Roger B. “Victims or Victimizers? Museums, Textbooks, and the War Debate in Contemporary Japan.” Journal of Military History 69 (January 2005): 149–195.
DOI: 10.1353/jmh.2005.0025Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Concludes that the perception of the Japanese downplaying their role in World War II is overinflated to some degree as evidenced by the emergence of museums that discuss Japanese atrocities and the debate over the portrayal of Japan in textbooks.
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Lifton, Robert Jay, and Greg Mitchell. Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial. New York: Putnam, 1995.
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The final half details how Hiroshima and historical memory have intersected in America since 1945 examining, in particular, the memory of the bombings on American political leaders, the individuals who created the bombs, and the apparent victory of the orthodox interpretation during the Enola Gay controversy.
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Linenthal, Edward T., and Tom Englehardt. History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past. New York: Metropolitan, 1996.
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Argues that the debate over the Enola Gay was only part of a larger series of cultural debates within American society about the “proper” history of the nation between conservative political forces and academics.
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Newman, Robert P. Enola Gay and the Court of History. New York: Peter Lang, 2004.
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Links the NASM controversy to the controversy between orthodox interpretation of the decision to use the atom bomb and the revisionist position. Argues that the NASM exhibit was inherently flawed from the beginning by its decision to adopt a more revisionist interpretation and that decision led to its cancellation.
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Yoneyama, Lisa. Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520085862.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A highly theoretical work that posits that the memory of Hiroshima, which has served to transform Japan into a nation of peace, is built upon forgotten elements of wartime society and culture.