HIST 386: Topics in History
HIST 386-002: Remembering Hiroshima
(Spring 2013)
01:30 PM to 04:10 PM MW
Planetary Hall 224
Section Information for Spring 2013
This course is team-taught by Prof. Martin Sherwin and Prof. Brian Platt.
The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 marked both an end and a beginning. It marked the end of the Pacific War, a brutal conflict full of propaganda, deep hatred, and mass killing on both sides. It also signaled the beginning of an effort to construct the meaning and significance of the event. Americans and Japanese tried to answer the question: How should we remember the bombings? As righteous retribution for Japanese atrocities in the Pacific War? As a horrific but necessary means to end a brutal war? As an act of inhumanity against Japanese civilians? As an opening salvo in the Cold War? The effort to answer these questions played out against the backdrop of the nuclear age, with each country answering these questions differently over time as circumstances changed. In this class we will study the event itself, but we will also focus on the changing meaning of the event in postwar American and Japanese culture.
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Course Information from the University Catalog
Credits: 1-6
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.
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