Between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima/Nagasaki: A psychological vicious circle

Abstract

Today, fifty years after the Pacific War ended, crucial differences in the way the war is recalled in Japan and in the United States are coming to light. Of course even now when Japanese people criticize the United States for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they are met with the rejoinder “remember Pearl Harbor.” This can be called the long-term vicious circle of wartime imagery in both countries, but now, exactly fifty years after the end of the war, it is especially striking.