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Brandon Blue
Hist 4000
June 3, 2008
Review of Ronald Takaki’s
Hiroshima
Ronald
Takaki succeeds in encouraging a serious and substantive debate about the
decision to deploy the atomic bombs against Japan. He achieves
this result by raising arguments with which many historians of the bomb
would disagree. This effort is in contrast to the common
war-ending strategies to which most historians of the bomb are accustomed. Takaki is of Asian background and his studies are strongly involved
with dispelling the myth of model minority around Asian Americans. This
non-fiction work takes advantage of a lot of primary sources that were
recently made available and uses known secondary sources to tackle the
decision of the atomic bomb.
Takaki’s
book tackles every chance that there could be a factor in the decision
to use the atomic bomb. Takaki attacks Truman’s inexperience as a
President, stating that Truman accepted office in a state of turmoil and
he was following with his advisor’s decisions. He also attacks Truman’s
machismo, saying that he was dropped the bomb to show how manly he
was. Takaki also says that the future of relations with Russia was the
result of the decision also, stating that the United States need to have
a bargaining tool to control Russia after world war II. Takaki also
tackles the most common decision maker that it saved many American
lives, saying that the estimates of occupation were over stated to make
the decision easier to make. Takaki finalizes his work with stating
several quotes and explanations of Americans leaders and how they felt
that the Atomic Bomb was unforgettable and the large amount of
destruction it created was unbelievable.
Takaki
book is extremely useful at providing source material from many
different views of the results and the decision to drop the bomb. He
takes a controversial approach to strike debate poking truths and using
quotes about idolized leaders, such as Truman. Takaki tends to take a
very empathic approach with the Japanese; this is used to stir debate
within his targeted audience. This approach is a valuable to a reader
that strived to get a different approach on the atomic bomb and its
impact.
Takaki
approach to stimulate debate are one of the most distracting of his
works, his views can commonly seem bias. Takaki makes allegations that
Truman’s prejudice and how this influenced his decision to use an atomic
weapon. This stirs a slight debate versus the real reasons of Takaki’s
writings, he suffered discrimination as an Asian American; forcing a
reader to debate Takaki’s unbiased opinion. Takaki’s also uses a lot of
quotes from primary sources, he carefully places segments of quotes to
skew their meanings, and these quotes are subject to the utmost scrutiny
requiring the reader to further his research to get the correct context.
Over all
Takaki’s work is very stimulating and wonderful to use to compare to
other published works. Despite his biases and his empathy towards the
Japanese his work challenges the reader to debate and scrutinize what he
or she may already know. This work would also spark a reader’s interest
to explore deeper into the decision to an atomic weapon as a war
strategy or strategy to contain Russia after the war. Takaki states
within his thesis that his purpose was to provide a serious and
substantive debate and not a debate of angry or uninformed opinion, but
he doesn’t seem genuine to his own thesis.
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