scholarly journals Hiroshima’s Hibakusha: The Costs of Human Health in a Nuclear Age

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Powell

At the end of World War II, Japan, as well as the rest of the world, was thrust into a new age of unbelievably destructive possibilities: the first use of nuclear weapons against human beings. Not only could such a bomb flatten an entire city, it could do so in only an instant. The poorly understood scars that were left showed a new level of war that the world needs to come to terms with. By considering the many medical effects of the atomic bomb on the victims of Hiroshima City, which encompasses the initial blast, radiation, and traumatic effects, we can gain a better understanding of the terrible costs of human health in nuclear war.

Author(s):  
Nancy Shoemaker

This epilogue addresses how David Whippy, Mary D. Wallis, and John B. Williams—as they pursued respect in different ways—became party to the many changes taking place in Fiji due to foreign influence. Whippy, Wallis, and Williams were all involved, in one way or another, in the U.S.–Fiji trade. In the twentieth century, new incentives enticed Americans to Fiji. American global activism and private development schemes involved Fiji as much as other places around the world, and medical aid and research sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and a Carnegie Library at Suva introduced new forms of American influence in the islands. World War II, of course, brought Americans to the islands in droves. However, the main avenue by which Americans would come to Fiji was through the third wave of economic development that succeeded the sugar plantations of colonial Fiji: tourism. Now that the face of Fiji presented to the rest of the world evokes pleasure instead of fear, references to the cannibal isles have become nothing more than a nostalgic nod to Fiji's past. Previously considered a site of American wealth production, the islands have now become a site of American consumption.


1996 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Cohen

Of all the many changes of the world economy since World War II, few have been nearly so dramatic as the resurrection of global finance. A review of five recent books suggests considerable diversity of opinion concerning both the causes and the consequences of financial globalization, leaving much room for further research. Competing historical interpretations, stressing the contrasting roles of market forces and government policies, need to be reexamined for dynamic linkages among the variables they identify. Likewise, impacts on state policy at both the macro and micro levels should be explored more systematically to understand not just whether constraints may be imposed on governments but also how and under what conditions, and what policymakers can do about them. Finally, questions are also raised about implications for the underlying paradigm conventionally used for the study of international political economy and international relations more generally.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ágota Duró

This article delineates the process that Japanese adherents of Christianity, despite Japan being one of the least Christian nations in the world, were at the forefront of civil society movements in the early 1970s to advocate for the rights of atomic bomb survivors who returned to South Korea after 1945. Many Christians, when considering Japan’s accountability in World War II, were driven by contrition and a strong sense of righteousness, and they considered reconciliation with other Asian nations of the utmost importance. This article explores the support activities of three Christians who were prominent members of grassroots movements that emerged in the 1970s to assist Korean survivors in various parts of Japan. Despite belonging to diverse Protestant denominations, the advocates were motivated to act by similar Christian ethics: to stand up for the oppressed, consolidate peace, love their neighbors, and demand social justice. Their example illustrates the larger historical process of Christian reassessment of their prewar morals in a way that facilitated their emergence as the preeminent promoters of pacifism and antiwar activism in the postwar era.


Author(s):  
Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia

Since antiquity and through the modern era African societies maintained contacts with peoples in Europe, the Near and Far East, and the Americas. Among other things, African peoples developed local forms of Christianity and Islam, contributed large amounts of gold to European medieval economies, and exported millions of slaves through the Sahara, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Despite this, by the 19th century historians and philosophers of history thought Africa was a continent without major civilizations, whose peoples passively rested at the margins of history. These ideas persisted into the 20th century when historians undertook the challenge of writing histories that explained how communities around the world were connected to one another. In their early iterations, however, these “world narratives” were little more than histories of the Western world; Africa continued to be largely absent from these stories. After World War II, increasing interest in the history of African societies and a more generalized concern with the study of communities that were both mis- and under-represented by historical scholarship called for a revision of the goals and methods of world historians. Among the most important critiques were those from Afrocentric, African American, and Africanist scholars. Afrocentric writers argued that Africa had in fact developed an important civilization in the form of Egypt and that Egypt was the foundation of the classical world. African American and Africanist writers highlighted the contributions that peoples of African descent had made to the world economy and many cultures around the globe. Africanists also questioned whether world historical narratives, which meaningfully accounted for the richness and complexity of African experiences, could be achieved in the form of a single universal narrative. Instead, historians have suggested and produced new frameworks that could best explain the many ways in which Africa has been part of the world and its history.


Collections ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-496
Author(s):  
Joanna Kafarowski

A notable 20th-century female explorer, California-born Louise Arner Boyd (1887-1972) was also a world expert on Greenland. As it was in Boyd's time, Greenland remains a remote and little-known area of the world. She was showered with honors and respected by her polar colleagues. As a result of organizing and participating in seven hazardous Arctic expeditions between 1926 and 1955, she amassed a significant collection of maps, photographs, films, and books about this area. The majority of photographs and films were taken by Boyd, while many of the maps were based on information gathered during her Arctic adventures. Meticulous and detail oriented, Louise Arner Boyd was driven by her passion for the north. Boyd traveled to Greenland, photographing geographic landforms and gathering scientific information. Her expertise on Greenland was recognized by the American government during World War II and her collection put at the government's disposal. Contemporary Norwegian glaciologists still use her existing 1930s photographs to track environmental change. Today, the many accomplishments of Louise Arner Boyd have been forgotten, and her magnificent collection, which was an invaluable asset to the Allied effort during World War II, has been dispersed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 772-788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stevo Đurašković

Most scholarship on post-Communist Croatia claims that the first Croatian president, Franjo Tuđman, intentionally rehabilitated the legacy of the World War II (WWII) Croatian Ustaša and its Nazi-puppet state. The rehabilitation of the Ustaša has been linked to Tuđman's national reconciliation politics that tended toward a particular “forgetting of the past.” The national reconciliation was conceptualized as a joint struggle of both the Croatian anti-fascist Partisan and the Croatian WWII fascist Ustaša successors to achieve Croatian independence. However, the existing scholarship does not offer a comprehensive explanation of the nexus between national reconciliation and the rehabilitation of the Ustaša. Hence, this article will present how “Ustaša-nostalgia” does not stem from Tuđman's intentions, but rather from the morphological gap occurring in Tuđman's nation-building idea. Namely, Tuđman's condemnation of the entire idea of Yugoslavism and Yugoslavia eventually brought about the perception that any historical agent advocating the idea of an independent Croatia is better than any form of Croatian Yugoslavism. Finally, the article will present how contemporary Croatian society is still seeped in “Ustaša-nostalgia” due to the hesitation of the post-Tuđman Croatian politics to come to terms with the legacy of his national reconciliation politics.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Asma Zahoor

ABSTRACT Dialectical relationship between language and other elements of social life constitute the bases of Fairclough’s (2003) Model of Critical Discourse Analysis. He combines the textual analysis with the contextual analysis, taking discourse as a form of social practice—linked to other discourses and social practices in more than one way. This paper explores how Shamsie’s discourse in Burnt Shadows is interdiscursive in these specific ways. Fairclough’s model of CDA has been used as a research method. His conceptual framework of interdiscursivity is used to explore the relationships between the text and the context in terms of other texts and actual events of human history and their reflection in different literary discourses. Shamsie links War on Terror with World War II to expose the ideology behind the world power structures and power politics in the world where might is the only right. Life moved full circle from Nagasaki on the fatal day of dropping of the second atomic bomb in World War II to taking mere suspects to Guantanamo Bay with the sole objective to ‘save the Americans’ lives.’ This study shows Shamsie’s insightful knowledge of the world history of colonialism, postcolonialism and neocolonialism and how these apparently different movements are intertwined in more than one way. Her fictional discourse bears many examples of Interdiscursivity. Keywords: Interdiscursivity, intertextuality, dialogism, ideology and socio-political practices


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 167-184
Author(s):  
Jacek Pietrzak

Polish citizens and people of Polish descent played a considerably significant role in the Spanish Civil War. They fought on both sides of the conflict, however, most of them in the Republican Army (4,500-5,000 among ca. 35,000 soldiers of the International Brigades). Approximately 75% of them comprised of immigrants, mainly from France, who were predominantly either activists or supporters of the French Communist Party. Only 600-800, or according to some sources 1200 individuals, the majority of whom were communists (80% or more), were believed to come directly from Poland. The highest number of volunteers fought within the ranks of 13th Brigade “Jarosław Dąbrowski”, which took part in the major key operations and suffered huge losses amounting to 30-40%. A few dozens of Poles fought in the Gen. F. Franco’s National Army.  Most of them were professional soldiers of the Spanish Foreign Legion, who had joined it before the war broke out, so their participation in the war was not dictated by ideological reasons. The author adopts synthesizing approach to portray the Polish soldiers fighting for each side of the conflict, including their background and involvement in the most important military operations. The article pays an attention to the fates of Polish veterans of the International Brigades referred to as “Dąbrowszczacy” during the World War II and, following this, an attempt to demonstrate the specific role and changes “Dąbrowszczacy” were undergoing within the political system of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL).


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sasikala Sankaran ◽  
Hasnah Haron ◽  
Teoh Ai Ping ◽  
Yuvaraj Ganesan

This article seeks to reflect on the background of Competition Act 2010 of Malaysia by taking a step by step view on the many initiatives undertaken by various world bodies from post-World War II era in reviving and rebuilding the world economy to present days involving the competition agenda of the nation. In doing so, this article intends to emphasize on the perseverance and continuous efforts made over the decades in ensuring the nation finally had established the Act and the unceasing continuous efforts in forming ethical business environment with healthy competition stay as part Government of Malaysia’s initiatives.


2018 ◽  
pp. 222-234
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Conner

This chapter looks at the work the ABMC has been doing since World War II ended. The chairmanships of Generals Jacob Devers and Mark Clark are explored in some detail. Maintenance of the memorials is a mission of remembrance that the ABMC is strongly upholding. Some additional sites have been created since 1960, and “interpretive centers” continue to be added to the World War I and II memorials. Presidential visits to some of the cemeteries since the Carter years have expanded public awareness of these places of memory. The commission directed the construction of the WWII Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., that was dedicated in 2004. This chapter concludes with an assessment of the enduring importance of the work of the ABMC. The WWI veterans have all passed away, and WWII veterans are becoming fewer. The ABMC’s efforts to maintain the beautiful memorials, monuments, and cemeteries keep the many stories, examples learned, and sacrifices continually fresh in the public mind.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document