The United States, Japan, and the atomic bomb

Abstract

Two events associated with World War II in the Pacific virtually obliterated the distinction between combatant and non-combatant, that fragile distinction at the heart of international efforts of the last five centuries to regulate and restrict human and environmental destruction during wartime. These were:

• The Japanese onslaught against the peoples of China and Southeast Asia as exemplified by the bombing of Shanghai, the rape of Nanjing, and the attacks on civilians in the “three-all policy” (burn all, kill all, destroy all) directed against rural North China.

• The use of air strikes by several major powers to terrorize and destroy cities and populations, notably in the firebombing of European and Japanese cities and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States.

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Notes on contributors

Mark Selden

This is a modified version of the introductory essay in Kyoko and Mark Selden, eds., The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Armonk, NY; and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1989). Some sections have been expanded, but an entire section on atomic censorship has been omitted since Glenn Hook's article in this issue of BCAS covers this topic so well. I am indebted to Herbert Bix, Noam Chomsky, John Dower, Edward Friedman, Terence Hopkins, Iriye Akira, and Michael Klare for perceptive comments and suggestions. Monica Braw and Anzai Hisashi directed me to a number of documentary and archival sources.