The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the architecture of an American myth - Hardcover

Alperovitz, Gar

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002556146 ISBN 13: 9780002556149

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1995

Synopsis

On 6th and the 9th of August 1945, US B-52 bombers, Enola Gay and co., dropped their nuclear bombs on Japan, devastating two large cities Hiroshima and Nagaski, killing hundreds of thousands, polluting the earth irredeemably, and consigning millions as yet unborn to genetic defects born of mutations brought about in those few who survived the mushroom clouds. On 10th August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Had they done so earlier, the Japanese would have surrendered instantly. The US authorities knew Stalin was about to declare war and sought to invade Manchuria, and sought to pre-empt him, hence the nuclear annihilation unleashed just a day before. But why did the Americans kill so many and blight the future of millions more if the Japanese were to surrender anyway? Alperovitz, a scholar of the politics of nuclear capability, has excavated some secret archives over many years, meticulously piecing together conclusive evidence in the form of presidential memoranda and letters to show that the purpose of decimating Nagasaki and Hiroshima was not to bring the dogged Japanese generals to surrender, but rather to proclaim to the whole world, to all potential aggressors, but above all to Stalin amd Molotov, that the West was in possession of a terrifying new weapon. The irony is of course, that the Soviet Union had already made great strides in its own nuclear programme, and would shortly match the West warhead to warhead.

About this title

Review:

"A massively detailed yet fascinating and readable work of scholarship."--San Francisco Chronicle

From the Back Cover:

THE ATOMIC BOMB WAS DROPPED BY THE AMERICANS PRIMARILY TO SCARE THE SOVIET UNION, AND NOT TO SAVE LIVES OR BRING WAR TO AN END – THAT IS THE SHOCKING TRUTH AT THE HEART OF THIS CONCLUSIVE HISTORY.

On 6 and 9 August 1945 the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated by atomic bombs, dropped, we have long been told, to save a million soldiers’ lives, to tame unyielding Japan and to bring the second World War to its close. There was no alternative. That, as Dr Alperovitz carefully and irrefutably shows in this damning book, was simply a lie; that lie hardened into received wisdom, and the world has been systematically deceived for fifty years. All the while, the real reasons for the dropping of the atomic bomb lay elsewhere: they are set out before here in painstaking detail – the proofs, and the truth, are staggering.

“A comprehensive and definitive history”
NEWSDAY

“Ambitious and far-reaching: Alperovitz has lost none of his instinct for provocative judgements about one of the century’s paramount historical controversies. He has written what will almost certainly serve as a bible for the next generation of revisionist scholars, a book that is elegantly documented and intensely argued.”
MICHAEL R. BESCHLOSS, 'New York Times'

“Alperovitz has forced us to consider uncomfortable hypotheses, often with considerable supporting evidence.”
PROFESSOR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN, 'Sunday Times'

“Opinions, like talk, are cheap. The only way to come to a well-founded view on this momentous, 50-year-old argument is to study the documentary record that has gradually come to light, most plausibly now by reading Gar Alperovitz’s valuable new book on the subject. This famous revisionist, although still spurned by dominant US opinion, has provided the intellectually respectable interpretation of how and why the US became the only nation to use nuclear weapons. He has stayed with his subject and has prevailed in his pursuit of the truth. For this he deserves congratulations, indeed, honour.”
RONNIE DUGGER, 'Boston Globe'

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0002556146
• ISBN 13: 9780002556149
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 847