Time Schedule:
Kenneth B Pyle
HSTAS 490
Seattle Campus
Class description
NAGASAKI AND HIROSHIMA
This course does NOT fulfill the senior seminar requirement for history majors. Registration is by entry code available from Instructor Pyle: kbp@u.washington.edu. Admission is competitive, based on performance in previous relevant coursework. Class size will be limited to 12 students.
A poll of journalists at the turn of the millennium found that their choice of the most important story of the twentieth century was the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This course will consider the many aspects of this event, including: the origins of the Manhattan Project, American planning for the invasion of Japan and the use of the bomb, the Potsdam Declaration, Soviet entry into the war, Japan's decision to surrender, the continuing controversy among Japanese and American historians in interpreting motivations and responsibility, the Japanese sense of victimhood, and the consequent reflections on war and human nature in Japanese and American literature. The course will meet once a week for two hours for discussion of extensive reading on all of these subjects. Videos will also be used. The course will have no examinations but each student will choose a topic of particular interest on which to do extensive research, to make an oral presentation and to write a 15-20 page paper.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Previous coursework in modern Japanese or American history.
Class assignments and grading
Class assignments and grading will be outlined in the course syllabus.
Class discussion and the research paper.
