Japan's surrender was hastened by imminent invasion by the Soviet Red Army, a crippling US naval blockade and conventional bombing, and a diplomatic promise to protect the Japanese Emperor from execution, argues Paul Ham. Granting undue credit to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki excuses atrocity.
The terms on which the United States pressed Japan for surrender were shaped by American domestic politics; New Deal Democrats and their liberal allies succeeded in convincing Harry Truman that it was necessary to dramatically rebuild Japan's society along more social-democratic lines.
The 1976 campaign highlights a paradox: while the person a presidential nominee chooses as their running mate might be surprising, that individual is selected using criteria that are predictable.
Author Steve Olson makes sense of the complexities of the nuclear age by telling the story of plutonium processing in Hanford, Washington, arguably the key site in the history of nuclear weapons.
Historians have much to add to the social science theory on crowds and can help advance understanding past simplistic and mechanistic understandings of today's public unrest.
When we reflect on the monuments we need to ask: does the statue memorialize a person or event that was a force for creating a more perfect union or a force that sought to demolish the United States?
There has been much debate about how close the United States was to victory in the Pacific before the atomic bombs were dropped 75 years ago this week. But in 1945, the military ordered so many Purple Heart medals in anticipation of an invasion of Japan that medals from that supply are still being awarded today.
Miyoko Matsubara survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and became an advocate for abolishing nuclear weapons. The United States Senate can honor her and all victims and survivors of nuclear war by ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Historians may dislike Trump for many reasons that apply equally to our fellow Americans. But we also dislike him because he violates so many of the values important to us as historians.
John Feerick's work in constitutional law helped create the 25th Amendment, and an unadopted amendment to abolish the Electoral College. His recent family history and memoir shows how his immigrant parents laid a foundation for this success.
Should the statues remain up, doing the quiet work of reinforcing white supremacy while we get to work dismantling the interlocking components of structural racism? Or are the statues part of a 400-year history of violence against African-descended people that needs urgent attention and rectification?
Decolonizing sports history requires a deeper analysis of how false historical narratives that 'blamed the victim' became embedded in public venues in everyday life that shaped generations of Americans' perceptions of Native people.
Both while it stood and when its presence became inconvenient, the Hanging Monument shows how memorials control historical narratives and elevate particular interpretations of the past.
Through his long analysis of Trump's follies, Frum never develops his contention that twenty-first-century conservatism helped open the door for Trump. Without a full accounting, his political mea culpa is hollow and fails to offer guidance on how to avoid mistakes in the future.
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