Robert James Maddox (ed). Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism

Excerpt

All history is revisionist in the sense that each generation reinterprets the past from its own vantage point. This is particularly true with regard to those historical events that were truly transforming: the Reformation, the French Revolution, the American Civil War for the United States to note just a few. Nowhere has this revisionist phenomenon been more pronounced in recent years than in the historiography of World War II. The fall of France, the Battle of Britain, Hitler’s decision to attack the Soviet Union, Pearl Harbor among other topics have generated dozens of new studies, challenging traditional interpretations. For the Pacific War, the issue that consistently has engendered the greatest controversy is President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. …