History 4000

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Ronald Takaki wrote Hiroshima: Why America Dropped The Atomic Bomb, a nonfiction book published in 1995 by Little, Brown and Company. Takaki wrote the book in hopes of stimulating debate regarding the morality of the decision made by United States President Harry S. Truman to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.[1] Takaki’s purpose in writing his book was to attempt to discredit the standard answer to explain why the bombs were dropped; that it saved millions of American lives. Ronald Takaki is an American historian and a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written several books dealing with ethnic histories in the United States. Takaki hoped the debates stimulated through the reading of Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb would be void of political correctness to the right or to the left allowing all angles of this historical decision and event to be examined with historical accuracy. [2]

            Takaki’s book allows the participants in this historical decision to tell their own stories, through their letters, journal entries, and conversations. Takaki also uses data, racial norms and physiological analysis to bolster his arguments.[3] Takaki argues that the atomic bomb was not necessary nor was its use strictly based on saving American lives from the ravages of war.[4] Instead Takaki believes the decision to drop the bombs was made by an inexperienced president who, when faced with the facts of war, made a decision based on his racial prejudice, his childhood experiences and the need for the United States to prove its power to its ideological enemy, Russia. Takaki takes a one-sided approach, spending most of his book writing about the atrocities caused by the Americans in the Pacific front of World War II and very little time, basically a paragraph, addressing the atrocities committed by the Japanese. Despite his one-sided approach Takaki raises some interesting points for his readers to consider.[5] Such as was the atomic bomb necessary, was the decision to use the atomic bomb due to racial prejudice and anger, and even was President Truman fit for his job as leader of the United States. Through his writing and evidence relatively uncommon views about the events surrounding the dropping of the atomic bombs are presented in an effort to challenge readers on their understanding of the motives and reasons behind the dropping of the atomic bombs.[6]

            Hiroshima: Why America Dropped The Atomic Bomb by Takaki is a short book and relatively easy read. However Takaki’s goal of creating a book that stirs unbiased debate is undermined by many of Takaki’s arguments. While Ronald Takaki’s arguments all have aspects of truth in them, Takaki takes many of his arguments to an extreme that renders many of them almost absurd. The most pointed example of this is Takaki’s argument that President Truman ordered the dropping of the bombs on Japan in an effort to make up for the “sissy” image he was labeled with as a child.[7] Another example of Takaki’s extreme arguments is his depiction of the United States government as Soviet obsessed, to the point of using the Pacific front of the Second World War to prove its strength and might to the Russian government.[8] While both of these arguments have elements of truth in them, particularly the latter, they are taken to an extreme that resulted in a book that is slanted by opinion and bias.

            Ronald Takaki’s book, while he takes an uncommon stance, is thought provoking in that it is well referenced and relies heavily on written sources from many of the political figures active in the decision making processes surround the use of atomic bombs such as Harry S. Truman, Leslie Groves and James Byrnes to defend his arguments.[9] However, his failure to explore Japan’s role in the war and his often outlandish claims about President Truman’s motives prevents his book from creating the unbiased debate that he had envisioned.[10]

Bibliography

Takaki, Ronald. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. New York:

Little, Brown and Company, 1995.