Bombs Bursting in Air: State and Citizen Responses to the US Firebombing and Atomic Bombing of Japan

Mark Selden

Chapter Chapter 6 in Natural Disaster and Reconstruction in Asian Economies, 2013, pp 79-109 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter assesses and compares the impact and historical significance of the firebombing and atomic bombing of Japanese cities in the history of both war and disaster. Japan’s decision to surrender, pivoting on issues of firebombing and atomic bombing, Soviet entry into the war, and the origins of Soviet-American confrontation, is the most fiercely debated subject in twentieth-century American global history. The surrender issue, however, is addressed only in passing here. The focus is rather on the human and social consequences of the bombings, and their legacy in the history of warfare and historical memory in the long twentieth century. The first part provides an overview of the calculus that culminated in the final year of the war in a US strategy centered on the bombing of civilians and assesses its impact. The second part examines the bombing in Japanese and American collective memory including in history, literature, commemoration, and education. What explains the power of the designation of the postwar as the atomic era while the area bombing of civilians by fire and napalm, which would so profoundly shape the future of warfare in general and American wars in particular, would fade to virtual invisibility in Japanese, American, and global consciousness?

Keywords: Atomic Bomb; Atomic Bomb Survivor; Moral Legacy; Japanese City; Japanese Authority (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-36416-6_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137364166

DOI: 10.1057/9781137364166_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().