Skip to main content

The 'Inheritance' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Rethinking the Bombings towards a Post-Survivor World

The 'Inheritance' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cover

The 'Inheritance' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Rethinking the Bombings towards a Post-Survivor World

Quantity
Pre-order. Available Oct 01 2026
$46.35 RRP $51.50 Website price saving $5.15 (10%)

Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available

Description

With 2025 marking the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this timely study focuses on the challenge of keisho or 'inheritance' and the way a new generation of scholars and activists is re-examining the meaning of the A-bomb and the 80-year history of commemoration and activism in the stricken cities. Using a team of scholars based in the USA and Japan, many of who are academics from this new generation, The 'Inheritance' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki takes a critical look at the problem of inheritance and the current transitory moment in A-bomb commemoration and nuclear scholarship by looking at a range of historical topics from the 80-year history of post-atomic Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and beyond. The book does this by: examining historical memory in a way that disengages the two cities from a Japanese-national memory perspective by looking at global connections, on one hand, and the local history of the two cities; re-thinking the history of survivors, their experience, and their movement; and, finally, exploring material culture and the problem of inheritance and legacy.

Table of Contents

Maika Nakao, Masaya Nemoto, and Ran Zwigenberg: Introduction: Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the Eightieth Anniversary of the Bombing

Part I: Reconstruction of Memory/Memory of Reconstruction

1. Yuko Kawaguchi: "Immigrants' Ties to Their Homeland: Hiroshiman Traders and Japanese-American Communities in the Early Postwar Years"
2. Marina Nishii: "Masculinity and Gender in Reconstruction of Hiroshima"
3. Hirokazu Miyazaki: "A Tale of Two Churches:Catholic Atomic Ruins, Fundraising, and Trans-Pacific Relationality"
4. Hibiki Yamaguchi: “Shogen as Witnessing and Fukugen as Reclaiming: Breaking the “Silence” of Nagasaki””

Part II: Hibakusha beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki

5. Kyoko Sato: “Surviving the A-Bomb in Japanese America: Politics, Expertise, and Nuclear Visions”
6. Naoko Wake: “The Bomb's Slow Violence: The Rise of Diasporic Memories and Transnational Activism”
7. Kyoko Matsunaga: “Trans/National Nuclear Colonialisms: Revisiting Village of Widows
8. Yuki Miyamoto: “The Metaphor of Blood and Discrimination Against Hibakusha: A Hermeneutical Lacuna in Japan's Social Order”

Part III: Material and Immaterial Inheritance

9. Chad Diehl: "Visualizing Nagasaki: Art, Ekphrasis, and Postmemory"
10.Ran Zwigenberg: “Ihin: The Sanctification of A-Bomb Objects in the Hiroshima Museum”
11.Maika Nakao: “Body for Eulogy and Investigation: Science, Religion, and Atomic Bomb Victims in Postwar Nagasaki”
12.Robert Jacobs: "Atomic Memeification: “Hiroshima” as a Unit of Measure"13.Masaya Nemoto: “From a Means to an End: The History of Inheriting the A-Bomb Experience in Hiroshima”

Maika Nakao, Masaya Nemoto, and Ran Zwigenberg: Epilogue

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published Oct 01 2026
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 288
ISBN 9781350378476
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 20 bw illus
Dimensions 234 x 156 mm
Series SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Maika Nakao

Maika Nakao is Associate Professor at Hiroshima Un…

Anthology Editor

Masaya Nemoto

Masaya Nemoto is Associate Professor at Matsuyama…

Anthology Editor

Ran Zwigenberg

Ran Zwigenberg is Associate Professor at Pennsylva…

Related Titles

Environment: Staging