The problem is that quite often pundits fail to take into account historical context, the time period, it’s morality and mores, preferring to layer on top of their studies the morality of the day in which the analysis is taking place-the cardinal sin in the study of history, and the mistake pundits, commentators, and academics alike make. It’s something that plagues historians, commentators and academics, not to mention the public One of the traps both historians and non-historians fall into is something called generational chauvinism the idea that we, in our age, know better than those in the past and therefore we can then pass judgement on those actions, usually in the negative. The loss of civilian life was tragic, with over 100,000 dying, many in the initial blast, while tens of thousand of others perished due to radiation poisoning, one of the after effects of the bomb itself. Criticism has surfaced in the modern age (post World War II) as to whether the bomb should have been dropped at all considering the loss of life and, of course, the devastation to both Hiroshima and the people that lived there.
Over the decades since this event, there has been a lot of speculation as to the efficacy of President Truman’s order that initiated the atomic age. Today, August 6th, is the anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
