The development and use of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki number among the formative national experiences for both Japanese and Americans as well as for 20th-century Japan-US relations. This volume explores the way in which the bomb has shaped the self-image of both peoples.

In Japan, "hibakusha" means "the people affected by the explosion--specifically, the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima in 1945. In this classic study, winner of the 1969 National Book Award in Science, Lifton studies the psychological effects of the bomb on 90,000 survivors. He sees this analysis as providing a last chance to understand--and be motivated to avoid--nuclear war. This compassionate treatment is a significant contribution to the atomic age.

In August 1945, the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What is hardly known is that 4,000 Nisei (Japanese Americans), the sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants who had been sent back to Japan to be educated before World War II erupted, were caught in the Hiroshima bombing. This extraordinary book commemorates the 3,000 Nisei who died from the atomic blast in Hiroshima and documents the plight of another 1,000 hibakusha (survivors of the bomb) who returned to the West Coast after the war.Branded as ?foreigners? in wartime Japan and as ?enemies? in postwar United States, their existence as victims of the atomic blast has not been recognized by either the Japanese or the U.S. government, both of which have refused to alleviate the medical and political problems of the survivors. Drawing on primary sources and rich interview data, Rinjiro Sodei has contributed an original scholarly work to the literature on World War II and the Asian-American experience. This book bears witness to the human calamities of the nuclear age and to the dignity of these Japanese Americans striving to obtain their rights and sustain their bicultural identity.

This book explores the contemporary legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the passage of three quarters of a century, and the role of art and activism in maintaining a critical perspective on the dangers of the nuclear age. It closely interrogates the political and cultural shifts that have accompanied the transition to a nuclearised world. Beginning with the contemporary socio-political and cultural interpretations of the impact and legacy of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the chapters examine the challenges posed by committed opponents in the cultural and activist fields to the ongoing development of nuclear weapons and the expanding industrial uses of nuclear power. It explores how the aphorism that "all art is political" is borne out in the close relation between art and activism. This multi-disciplinary approach to the socio-political and cultural exploration of nuclear energy in relation to Hiroshima/Nagasaki via the arts will be of interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, social political and cultural studies, fine arts, and art and aesthetic studies.

Children of the Atomic Bomb is Dr. Yamazaki's account of a lifelong effort to understand and document the impact of nuclear explosions on children, particularly the children conceived but not yet born at the time of the explosions. Assigned in 1949 as Physician in Charge of the United States Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Nagasaki, Yamazaki had served as a combat surgeon at the Battle of the Bulge where he had been captured and held as a prisoner of war by the Germans. In Japan he was confronted with violence of another dimension - the devastating impact of a nuclear blast and the particularly insidious effects of radiation on children. Yamazaki's story is also one of striking juxtapositions, an account of a Japanese-American's encounter with racism, the story of a man who fought for his country while his parents were interned in a concentration camp in Arkansas.