Hiroshima

Wednesday

Mike Coté

Beware the Nagasaki and Hiroshima revisionism

2025 is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the most calamitous conflict in history. The victory over Nazism in Europe is universally fêted, but the triumph over Japanese militarism receives far less celebration. The atomic bombing of Japan, which forced unconditional surrender, has long been criticized by revisionist historians as unjust, unnecessary and morally depraved; that narrative has been absorbed as the truth of the matter. Decades of liberal education have shifted opinions massively, with only 35 percent of Americans believing the bombings were justified as compared to 85 percent in 1945. Those younger than 50 oppose the bombings by significant margins.

Hiroshima

Sunday

Roger Kimball

The atomic bomb saved Japanese lives, too

It’s August 6, which means that it is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.   Every year at this time there are a spate of articles about that horrific event. Some of the articles are condemnatory; some hand-wringing; some are defiantly supportive.  This year, the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s new movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the making of the atomic bomb has given the controversy over the development and deployment of that awesome weapon a new urgency.   Something else that has contributed to the fraught atmosphere is the war in Ukraine. After all, one side in that conflict, Russia, controls the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, more than 6,000 warheads. My friend Roger L.

hiroshima atomic bomb japanese

Sunday

Oliver Jia

Japan deserves to see Oppenheimer

As millions of people across the world rush into cinemas this week to see Christopher Nolan’s latest epic thriller Oppenheimer, one notable country will not be part of the film’s initial release window despite the relevant subject matter — Japan. For reasons that are still unclear, Universal Pictures has not announced a Japanese release date. Yet if any place deserves to see a film based on the life of the theoretical physicist who played an essential role in developing the atomic bombs which ended World War Two, it should be the country that was most affected by them. Hollywood films being delayed for release in Japan is a very common occurrence, and it rarely ever has anything to do with politics.

japan oppenheimer

Friday

Peter Van Buren

The myth that Hiroshima was necessary

If you think the falsehoods spilling out of Ukraine about casualties and atrocities are shocking, meet the greatest lie of modern history. August 6 marks the seventy-seventh anniversary of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and death of some 140,000 non-combatants. Yet the only nation in history to employ a weapon of mass destruction on an epic scale, against an undefended civilian population, shrugs off the significance of an act of immorality. Beyond the destruction lies the myth of the atomic bombings, the post-war creation of a mass memory of things that did not happen. This myth has become the underpinning of American policy ever since, and carries forward the horrors of Hiroshima as generations pass.