Resurrecting Nagasaki

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.

In Resurrecting Nagasaki, Chad R. Diehl examines the reconstruction of Nagasaki City after the atomic bombing of August 9, 1945. Diehl illuminates the genesis of narratives surrounding the bombing by following the people and groups who contributed to the city's rise from the ashes and shaped its postwar image in Japan and the world. Municipal...

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"

Resurrecting Nagasaki deserves to be read as foundational work on the post-atomic history of Nagasaki.

-- "Pacific Historical Review"

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"