Books by Chad R. Diehl
Shadows of Nagasaki: Trauma, Religion, and Memory after the Atomic Bombing (New York: Fordham University Press, 2024), 2024
A critical introduction to how the Nagasaki atomic bombing has been remembered, especially in con... more A critical introduction to how the Nagasaki atomic bombing has been remembered, especially in contrast to Hiroshima.
In the decades following the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the city's residents processed their trauma and formed narratives of the destruction and reconstruction in ways that reflected their regional history and social makeup. In doing so, they created a multilayered urban identity as an atomic-bombed city that differed markedly from Hiroshima's image. Shadows of Nagasaki traces how Nagasaki's trauma, history, and memory of the bombing manifested through some of the city's many postatomic memoryscapes, such as literature, religious discourse, art, historical landmarks, commemorative spaces, and architecture. In addition, the book pays particular attention to how the city's history of international culture, exemplified best perhaps by the region's Christian (especially Catholic) past, informed its response to the atomic trauma and shaped its postwar urban identity. Key historical actors in the volume's chapters include writers, Japanese-Catholic leaders, atomic-bombing survivors (known as hibakusha), municipal officials, American occupation personnel, peace activists, artists, and architects. The story of how these diverse groups of people processed and participated in the discourse surrounding the legacies of Nagasaki's bombing shows how regional history, culture, and politics--rather than national ones--become the most influential factors shaping narratives of destruction and reconstruction after mass trauma. In turn, and especially in the case of urban destruction, new identities emerge, and old ones are rekindled, not to serve national politics or social interests but to bolster narratives that reflect local circumstances.
Resurrecting Nagasaki: Reconstruction and the Formation of Atomic Narratives, 2018
Yet, she shies away from also acknowledging the degree to which much of the eugenics of the first... more Yet, she shies away from also acknowledging the degree to which much of the eugenics of the first half of the twentieth century has been naturalized, systematized, and individualized in large parts of the Global North where reproductive assistance and technologies of selection are readily available and promoted, no matter whether in Western Europe or Israel, Japan or the United States. These quibbles aside, Contraceptive Diplomacy: Reproductive Politics and Imperial Ambitions in the United States and Japan is a welcome addition to a recent mini-wave of works by historians and cultural studies scholars that have contributed to self-consciously transnationalizing (across the Pacific) the emergence of birth control, women's rights, and feminism.
View on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/River-Flowed-Raft-Corpses-Yamaguchi/dp/1450712975
Articles by Chad R. Diehl
The Routledge History of U.S. Foreign Relations, ed. Tyson Reeder, 2022
This article explores the poetry written by survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki to elucid... more This article explores the poetry written by survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki to elucidate the history of atomic memory in the city. Looking closely at works by three poets, the article discusses how poetry served as a medium for the survivors to grapple with traumatic memory and convey the atomic experience in meaningful ways that both provided catharsis and challenged a landscape of memory that ignored their personal trauma and suffering. An analysis of their verse also informs our understanding of the historical nature of war trauma more generally.
Chad R. Diehl, "Envisioning Nagasaki: From 'Atomic Wasteland' to 'International Cultural City,' 1... more Chad R. Diehl, "Envisioning Nagasaki: From 'Atomic Wasteland' to 'International Cultural City,' 1945-1950," Urban History 41:3 (August 2014): 497-516.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813000746
Abstract: This article looks at the first five years of reconstruction in Nagasaki City after the atomic bombing of 9 August 1945, elucidating how the municipal vision of reconstruction shaped the city's post-war urban identity, especially in comparison to Hiroshima. From early on, city officials envisioned the future of Nagasaki as a restored ‘international cultural city’, not solely as a centre of atomic memory, while Hiroshima made the atomic experience the centre of its urban identity. This article seeks to revive Nagasaki as a subject of historical inquiry in order to balance scholarly, as well as popular, literature on the bombings, which has favoured Hiroshima for nearly seven decades. In short, the story of Nagasaki sheds a different light on bombing and aftermath, not only in comparison with Hiroshima but with other cities that have suffered mass destruction and the course of their subsequent reconstruction.
UVA Office of Engagement, 2020
Tsutomu Yamaguchi witnessed and survived two atomic bombings in just three days. He was in Hirosh... more Tsutomu Yamaguchi witnessed and survived two atomic bombings in just three days. He was in Hiroshima for work on August 6, 1945, endured some burns on his left arm and face, and boarded a train for his hometown of Nagasaki on August 7. As he related to me over castella-cake and tea at his home in Nagasaki on a muggy July afternoon in 2009, when he saw the mushroom cloud rising above the second city on August 9, 1945, he was certain that it had chased him down from Hiroshima.
Book Reviews by Chad R. Diehl
The Journal of American History, 2016
Review of Kirsten Cather, _The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan_ (Honolulu: University of Hawai... more Review of Kirsten Cather, _The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan_ (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012).
Media by Chad R. Diehl
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Books by Chad R. Diehl
In the decades following the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the city's residents processed their trauma and formed narratives of the destruction and reconstruction in ways that reflected their regional history and social makeup. In doing so, they created a multilayered urban identity as an atomic-bombed city that differed markedly from Hiroshima's image. Shadows of Nagasaki traces how Nagasaki's trauma, history, and memory of the bombing manifested through some of the city's many postatomic memoryscapes, such as literature, religious discourse, art, historical landmarks, commemorative spaces, and architecture. In addition, the book pays particular attention to how the city's history of international culture, exemplified best perhaps by the region's Christian (especially Catholic) past, informed its response to the atomic trauma and shaped its postwar urban identity. Key historical actors in the volume's chapters include writers, Japanese-Catholic leaders, atomic-bombing survivors (known as hibakusha), municipal officials, American occupation personnel, peace activists, artists, and architects. The story of how these diverse groups of people processed and participated in the discourse surrounding the legacies of Nagasaki's bombing shows how regional history, culture, and politics--rather than national ones--become the most influential factors shaping narratives of destruction and reconstruction after mass trauma. In turn, and especially in the case of urban destruction, new identities emerge, and old ones are rekindled, not to serve national politics or social interests but to bolster narratives that reflect local circumstances.
Articles by Chad R. Diehl
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813000746
Abstract: This article looks at the first five years of reconstruction in Nagasaki City after the atomic bombing of 9 August 1945, elucidating how the municipal vision of reconstruction shaped the city's post-war urban identity, especially in comparison to Hiroshima. From early on, city officials envisioned the future of Nagasaki as a restored ‘international cultural city’, not solely as a centre of atomic memory, while Hiroshima made the atomic experience the centre of its urban identity. This article seeks to revive Nagasaki as a subject of historical inquiry in order to balance scholarly, as well as popular, literature on the bombings, which has favoured Hiroshima for nearly seven decades. In short, the story of Nagasaki sheds a different light on bombing and aftermath, not only in comparison with Hiroshima but with other cities that have suffered mass destruction and the course of their subsequent reconstruction.
Book Reviews by Chad R. Diehl
Media by Chad R. Diehl
In the decades following the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the city's residents processed their trauma and formed narratives of the destruction and reconstruction in ways that reflected their regional history and social makeup. In doing so, they created a multilayered urban identity as an atomic-bombed city that differed markedly from Hiroshima's image. Shadows of Nagasaki traces how Nagasaki's trauma, history, and memory of the bombing manifested through some of the city's many postatomic memoryscapes, such as literature, religious discourse, art, historical landmarks, commemorative spaces, and architecture. In addition, the book pays particular attention to how the city's history of international culture, exemplified best perhaps by the region's Christian (especially Catholic) past, informed its response to the atomic trauma and shaped its postwar urban identity. Key historical actors in the volume's chapters include writers, Japanese-Catholic leaders, atomic-bombing survivors (known as hibakusha), municipal officials, American occupation personnel, peace activists, artists, and architects. The story of how these diverse groups of people processed and participated in the discourse surrounding the legacies of Nagasaki's bombing shows how regional history, culture, and politics--rather than national ones--become the most influential factors shaping narratives of destruction and reconstruction after mass trauma. In turn, and especially in the case of urban destruction, new identities emerge, and old ones are rekindled, not to serve national politics or social interests but to bolster narratives that reflect local circumstances.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813000746
Abstract: This article looks at the first five years of reconstruction in Nagasaki City after the atomic bombing of 9 August 1945, elucidating how the municipal vision of reconstruction shaped the city's post-war urban identity, especially in comparison to Hiroshima. From early on, city officials envisioned the future of Nagasaki as a restored ‘international cultural city’, not solely as a centre of atomic memory, while Hiroshima made the atomic experience the centre of its urban identity. This article seeks to revive Nagasaki as a subject of historical inquiry in order to balance scholarly, as well as popular, literature on the bombings, which has favoured Hiroshima for nearly seven decades. In short, the story of Nagasaki sheds a different light on bombing and aftermath, not only in comparison with Hiroshima but with other cities that have suffered mass destruction and the course of their subsequent reconstruction.