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Aaron Gantt
HIST 4000-A01
June 2nd, 2008
First Book Review
Ronald Takaki
Hiroshima: Why American
Dropped the Atomic Bomb
Canada: Little, Brown &
Company, 1995.
194 pp, photographs, notes.
978-0-3-1683124-6
In his book, Hiroshima: Why
American Dropped the Atomic Bomb, Ronald Takaki explores the political,
social and personal motives as to why the US government dropped the atomic
bomb on Japan in 1945. Takaki’s take on this subject is anything but
conventional as he argues that the reasons why America chose to use atomic
weapons were rooted in the military’s need to end the war quickly, the need
to intimidate Russia and the racial prejudices against the Japanese (such
as, “remember Pearl Harbor”) of both President Truman and the American
collective conscious at the time.
Takaki’s qualifications certainly make him a worthy candidate to make such
controversial statements, as he holds a Ph.D. in history from the University
of California, Berkeley where he also works as a professor of Ethnic
Studies. Given his background, it is certainly no wonder as to where Takaki
is coming from when he presents such polemic interpretations of American
history.
Overall, I found Takaki’s book interesting, but nevertheless
difficult to take seriously. His statements about the events surrounding
the United States’ decision to drop the atomic bomb are broad and presented
with assumptions and little more. While he does present a wealth of
sources, he simply doesn’t rely on his research material when drawing his
fantastic conclusions. I found this problem impossible to ignore, thus
making his argument nothing more than a fun read and if nothing else a fun
spring board for discussion.
Takaki’s writing style is perfect for the kind of book he has set out to
write. It’s short and to the point, with little time wasted on shaping his
thoughts into poignant statements on the page. While Takaki does not fall
among the ranks of such historical writers as David McCullough or James
Bradley, he certainly has presented a well-written book that, if nothing
else raises some very debatable ideas about history.
Takaki gave several provoking reasons as to why the US dropped
the bomb, one of which was the issue of Truman’s manhood. Takaki argues
that the use of atomic weapons against Japan partially stemmed from Truman’s
attempts at proving himself to be a man in the face of the Russians and the
world itself. While this idea is intriguing, Takaki’s attempts at making
the connection between Truman’s inferiority complex and the use of atomic
weapons left me wanting more facts and evidence rather than cliffhanger
chapter endings. It’s a nice story, but is this, as well as the other
issues raised in the book the real reason for dropping the atomic bomb?
Takaki even admits, “while we may never know everything, we now have more
evidence on why the bomb was dropped.” Whether or not what Takaki has
presented helps to solve this puzzle is a matter of one’s opinion.
In the end, Takaki’s thesis seemed more or less a way of rocking
the boat than making an honest attempt at understanding history. It seems
to me that Takaki has simply taken various reliable sources and has inferred
his conclusions based on the writings of other historians and of historical
figures in their memoirs. Overall, Takaki failed to bring any
groundbreaking source material to the table in backing up his claims, thus
making his thesis mere conjecture rather than true historicity.
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