HIROSHIMA: EIGHTY YEARS ON

Chris Danziger, tutor, Continuing Education Department, Oxford University, United Kingdom


Tuesday 27–Thursday 29 January  9.15 am  COURSE FEES R345; Staff and students R173

 

Eighty years ago, the world learned that the Japanese city of Hiroshima had been shattered by a weapon of unprecedented destructiveness. Eight days later the Japanese accepted the Allied terms of surrender. Was the news in fact as much of a surprise to the Japanese and the world as it seemed? All sides fighting in the Second World War, including the Japanese, had been racing to develop a nuclear-type bomb. Even so, it took a second bomb, dropped three days later on Nagasaki, to convince the Japanese to surrender. On the other hand, what was it that persuaded the Americans to bring the war to a close by taking risks with such incalculable effects on human life – effects of which they were only vaguely aware? It is understandable only in the context of the literally suicidal determination of the Japanese not to yield an inch of conquered territory, and the four- year-old war which was still raging in the Pacific four months after the war in Europe ended. Weapons of such destructiveness have never been used again, but the world is still adjusting to the aftermath of the explosion.

Lecture titles

  1. The Empire of the Rising Sun
  2. Two Pacific superpowers at war
  3. The ultimate deterrent and its legacy

Recommended reading

Bird, K and Sherwin, M. 2005. Robert Oppenheimer: American Prometheus. New York: Alfred Knopf. Hoyt, E. 1986. Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Rhodes, R. 1986. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster. Tolland, J. 1970. The Rising Sun. New York: Random House.

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