The "Inheritance" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

An innovative exploration of the legacies of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the contestation of memories in the two cities and beyond.

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.