In Resurrecting Nagasaki, Chad R. Diehl explores the genesis of narratives surrounding the atomic bombing of August 9, 1945, by following the individuals and groups who contributed to the shaping of Nagasaki City's postwar identity. Municipal officials, survivor-activist groups, the Catholic community, and American occupation officials all interpreted the destruction and reconstruction of the city from different, sometimes disparate perspectives. Diehl's analysis reveals how these atomic narratives shaped both the way Nagasaki rebuilt and the ways in which popular discourse on the atomic bombings framed the city's experience for decades.
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Resurrecting Nagasaki deserves to be read as a foundational work on the post-atomic history of Nagasaki.
" - Pacific Historical Review
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The book makes a significant contribution to the understudied history of Nagasaki. Resurrecting Nagasaki is an important book for anyone who is interested in nuclear history, US Japan relations, US public diplomacy, and urban studies.
" - Japanese Studies
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A nicely written monograph—also the first in English, as it turns out—on Nagasaki the bombed, Nagasaki the resurrected, and Nagasaki the mirror image of its ghastly twinned counterpart, Hiroshima.
" - Kirk Center
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Resurrecting Nagasaki is the first scholarly work in English on the history of Nagasaki after the atomic bombing on 9 August 1945. Chad Diehl's book is therefore a welcome first work on the topic, one that can extend the frontiers of our understanding about how people have struggled to deal with the aftermath of unprecedented devastation. It should serve as a valuable springboard for further explorations into the history of postatomic Nagasaki.
" - Monumenta Nipponica
