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  3. The Most Controversial Decision
  • Cited by 13
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      05 June 2012
      11 April 2011
      ISBN:
      9780511977336
      9780521514194
      9780521735360
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511977336
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.45kg, 190 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.32kg, 192 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Regional and World History: General Interest, History, Twentieth Century American History
      Series:
      Cambridge Essential Histories
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    • Selected: Digital
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    Subjects:
    Regional and World History: General Interest, History, Twentieth Century American History
    Series:
    Cambridge Essential Histories
    Information

    Book description

    This book explores the American use of atomic bombs and the role these weapons played in the defeat of the Japanese Empire in World War II. It focuses on President Harry S. Truman's decision-making regarding this most controversial of all his decisions. The book relies on notable archival research and the best and most recent scholarship on the subject to fashion an incisive overview that is fair and forceful in its judgments. This study addresses a subject that has been much debated among historians and it confronts head-on the highly disputed claim that the Truman administration practised 'atomic diplomacy'. The book goes beyond its central historical analysis to ask whether it was morally right for the United States to use these terrible weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also provides a balanced evaluation of the relationship between atomic weapons and the origins of the Cold War.

    Reviews

    'Drawing on the many scholarly works that discuss the reasons why President Harry S. Truman and his closest advisers considered that the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in August 1945 was a necessary measure, the circumstances that surrounded the Japanese decision to surrender, and the role that possession of the atomic bomb may have played in American diplomacy towards the Soviet Union, Wilson Miscamble has also utilised his own formidable knowledge of the primary sources to produce a wonderfully compressed and trenchantly argued book.'

    Source: International Affairs

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