Hiroshima & Nagasaki

(see also World War II in the Pacific & Nuclear Weapons)

Basics

On the Web: Articles

On the Web: Specialized Sites

In the Library: Articles

Alperovitz, Gar. "Marshall, Truman & the decision to drop the bomb," International Security 16,3 (win 91):204-22.

__________. "To drop the atom bomb: after 50 years, moral reassessment of a fateful decision," Christianity & Crisis 52,1 (2/3/92):13-17.

__________. "Hiroshima: historical cleansing," In These Times (2/20/95):18-21.

__________. "Hiroshima: historians reassess," Foreign Policy 99 (sum 95):15-35.

Gilbert, James. "Memorializing the bomb," Radical History Review 34 (1986):101-4.

Kuznick, Peter J. "He 'never lost any sleep': coping with Truman's nightmarish nuclear legacy," Radical History Review 75 (fall 99):121-47.

Malcolmson, Robert. art. on "origins & consequences of decision of US military strategists to rely upon a massive nuclear arsenal after WWII" in J. Rule & R. Malcolmson (eds.) Protest & Survival: Essays for E.P. Thompson (NY: New Press, 1993).

Mohan, Uday & Sanho Tree. "Hiroshima, the American media, & the construction of conventional wisdom," Journal of American-East Asian Relations 4,2 (sum 95):141-61.

Sayle, Murray. "Letter from Hiroshima: Did the Bomb end the war?" New Yorker (7/3/\1/95):40-74.

Seltz, Daniel. "Remembering the war & the atomic bombs: new museums, new approaches," Radical History Review 75 (fall 99):92-108.

In the Library: Non-Fiction Books

Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima & Potsdam. The Use of the Atomic Bomb & the American Confrontation with Soviet Power [1965] (rev ed.; NY: Penguin, 1985). Author a former State Dept. employee.

__________ with Sanho Tree. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb & the Architecture of an American Myth (NY: Knopf, 1995). Argues that the bomb was unnecessary & that US leaders knew it.

Anon. The Witness of Those Two Days: Hiroshima & Nagasaki, August 6 & 9, 1945 (Tokyo, 1989).

Bird, Kai & Lawrence Lifschulz (eds.) Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History & the Smithsonian Controversy (Stony Creek CT, 1998).

Chisholm, Anne. Faces of Hiroshima: A Report (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985).

Dower, John W. & John Junkerman (eds.) The Hiroshima Murals: The Art of Iri Maruki & Goshi Maruki (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1985).

Hachiya, Michihiko. Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, 8/6-9/30, 1945 (Chapel Hill: U. North Carolina, 1995).

Harwit, Martin. An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of the Enola Gay (NY: Copernicus, 1996). On the controversy surrounding a Smithsonian exhibition on the half-centenary of the bombing.

Hersey, John. Hiroshima (NY: John Day, 1946). Moving, influential essay first published in New Yorker.

Jungk, Robert. Children of the Ashes: The People of Hiroshima [1959] (NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1961).

Kubo, Mitsue. Hibaku: Recollections of A-Bomb Survivors (Coquitlam, BC: Ryoji Inoue, 1990).

Lifton, Robert Jay. Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima [1967] (Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina, 1991).

__________ & Greg Mitchell. Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial (NY: Putnam, 1995).

Lindee, M. Susan. Suffering Made Real (Chicago: U. Chicago, 1994). Critical study of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) & practice of "colonial science" in its studies of the health of bomb victims.

Linenthal, Edward T. & Tom Engelhardt (eds.) History Wars: The Enola Gay & Other Battles for the American Past (NY: Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 1996).

MacEachin, Douglas J. The Final Months of the War with Japan: Signals Intelligence, US Invasion Planning & the A-Bomb Decision (Langley VA: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998).

Maddox, R.J. Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later (Columbia: U. Missouri, 1995).

Masamoto, Nasu. Children of the Paper Crane: The Story of Sadako Sasaki & Her Struggle with the A-Bomb Disease (trans. Elizabeth W. Baldwin, Stephen L. Leeper & Kyoko Yoshida; Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1991).

Nagai, Takashi. The Bells of Nagasaki [1949] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1984). Memoir of bombing & struggle to survive by a Christian doctor in the city, who died of radiation sickness in 1951.

Nakano, Michiko (ed.) Nagasaki under the Atomic Bomb: The Experiences of Young College Girls (Tokyo: Soeisha, 2000).

Neel, James V. & William J. Schull. The Children of Atomic Bomb Survivors: A Genetic Study (Washington: National Academy, 1991).

Newman, Robert P. Truman & the Hiroshima Cult (East Lansing: Michigan State, 1995). Critique of "revisionists" such as Alperovitz & Takaki, seen as imposing present-day concerns on the past & over-emphasizing the psychological makeup of President Truman.

Oda, Hisashi. A Voice from Nagasaki: The Story of Chieko Watanabe (Kyoto: Yamaguchi Shoten, 1987).

Okuda, Sadako Teiko with Pamela Bea Wilson Vergun. A Dimly Burning Wick: Memoir from the Ruins of Hiroshima (?: Algora, 2008). Diary begun the day after the bombing, with vivid descriptions of the havoc wrought -- especially among children -- by that horrific event.

Orr, James Joseph. The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace & National Identity in Postwar Japan (Honolulu: U. Hawai'i, 2001).

Osada, Arata (ed.) Children of the A-Bomb: Testament of the Boys & Girls of Hiroshima [1959] (trans. Jean Dan & Ruth Sieben-Morgen; NY: Putnam, 1963).

Schull, William J. Song Among the Ruins (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 1990).

Shapiro, Jerome F. Atomic Bomb Cinema (NY: Routledge, 2001).

Takaki, Ronald T. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995). Emphasizes racism, a desire to intimidate the Russians, & the psychological makeup of Truman as factors in the decision.

Thomas, Gordon & Max Morgan Witts. Enola Gay (NY: Stein & Day, 1977).

Walker, J. Samuel. Prompt & Utter Destruction. Truman & the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill: U. North Carolina, 1997). Argues that the existence of a wide variety of motivations made the decision to use the bomb almost unquestioned among American leaders.

Yamazaki, James N. with Louis B. Fleming. Children of the Atomic Bomb: An American Physician's Memoir of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, & the Marshall Islands (Durham NC: Duke, 1995).

Yoneyama, Lisa. Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, & the Dialectics of Memory (Berkeley: U. California, 1999).

In the Library: Fiction

Ibuse, Masuji. Black Rain (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1969). Uses diaries of a victim of the bombing to construct compelling story of long struggle of survivors against sickness & social discrimination.

Thackara, James. America's Children [1984] (Woodstock NY: Overlook, 2001).

In the Library: For Young Readers

Taylor, Theodore. The Bomb (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1995).

Yep, Laurence. Hiroshima: A Novella (NY: Scholastic, 1995).

In the Library: Poetry

Levine, Mark. Enola Gay (Berkeley: U. California, 2000).

In the Library: Drama

In the Library: Photography

Anon. Hiroshima & Nagasaki: A Photographic Record of an Historical Event (Hiroshima, 1978?).

CD & Audio

Film & Video

"The Bomb: February-September, 1945" [1980?], by HBO Video, 52m.

"Rain of Ruin: Enola Gay & the Atomic Bombing of Japan" [1995], dir. Tim Curran, 75m. From New Video Group.

"Hellfire: a Journey from Hiroshima" [1986], dir. John Junkerman, 58m. From First Run Icarus Films.

"Hibakusha: Brazilian Atomic Heirs (Hibakusha: herdeiros atomicos do Brasil), dir. Mauricio Kinoshita, 15m.

"Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes" (1990), dir. Peter Werner, 100m.

"Nagasaki Journey" [199?], by Independent Documentary Group, 28m. From Video Project.

"Rain of Ruin: The Bombing of Nagasaki" [1995], dir. Stephen Segaller, 56m. From Video Project.

"Rhapsody in August" [?], dir. Akira Kurosawa, 100m. In video stores.