Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth

As is clear from the historiography of the US decision to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the judgments of historians are relative to the time, place, and perspective from which they are writing. There are four major schools of historical interpretation of the decision. First is the orthodox view that was offered by the participants in the decision. Second is the revisionist view of historians writing during the era of the Vietnam war who adopted a much more critical interpretation. Third is an interpretive school that gives weight to the Japanese role and responsibility. Finally, the author's view is found in a more long-range perspective that finds the momentum created by President Roosevelt's unconditional surrender policy as the decisive factor. This policy provoked unconditional resistance in the Japanese military. By 1945 the legacy of Roosevelt's policy was firmly embedded in American public opinion. Historians have reached no consensus among these different interpretive schools.     

Trust: Why and How Historians Should Study It

Recent scholarship has examined the decline of trust between citizens and the elected representatives, which is seemingly a hallmark of contemporary Western democracies. But the problem is not new. This study draws on newspaper accounts to trace the accumulation and erosion of trust in the Scullin federal Labor government, during its early months. Elected on 12 October 1929, James Scullin's government was expected to resolve the long‐running New South Wales’ miners’ strike; his deputy, E.G. Theodore, promised Labor would return the miners to work on pre‐stoppage conditions. The promise was undeliverable. The lockout dragged on through Scullin's first months in office, with the miners refusing to work on reduced wages and the government unable to deliver on Theodore's pledge. By the end of January 1930, the government's trust relations with its core constituency had unraveled. This case study illustrates how trust is made and unmade through complex relations between individuals, and between individuals and institutions.     

The Commission of Historians in Latvia: 1999 to the present

In 1999, the President of Latvia, Guntis Ulmanis, created a Commission of Historians and charged it with investigating the nature and consequences for Latvians and Latvia of the two occupations (the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) the country experienced during the years of World War Two and afterwards. Special focus was to be direct to the Holocaust and to the multiple forms of repression practiced by the Soviet Communist regime. The Commission consisted of some 13-15 local, regional, and international scholars with specialized knowledge and, in some cases, personal experience, with the double occupation. The findings of the Commission were to be published in the form of a book series, with each volume devoted to a particular topic and containing reports delivered at international conferences or generated by ongoing research. The historical knowledge thus accumulated was to be disseminated widely, in the hope that it would become a basis for further research on this crucial and still-controversial period of Latvian history. A quantitative analysis of the twenty-seven Commission volumes published to date offers a capsule view of the Commission’s research efforts and research strategies, describes the subjects covered so far, and summarizes some of the criticism attracted by the Commission as well as its contributions to the sum total of Latvian history.     

The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft

The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft. By Tom Griffiths (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2016), pp. xviii + 326. AU$34.99 (pb).     

“Unbounded Enthusiasm”:1 Australian Historians and the Outbreak of the Great War

There is a growing body of European scholarship revising the traditionally held view that the peoples of Europe greeted the war with boundless patriotic enthusiasm. Niall Ferguson, Jean-Jacques Becker and Jeffery Verhey in particular have argued that the “August Days” were more myth than reality. The outbreak of the war in Australia has not yet attracted similar attention. With few exceptions, Australian scholars writing about the opening days and weeks of the war have agreed that Australian popular reaction was dominated by overwhelming enthusiasm. This paper will explore the Australian historiography, since the 1930s, and assess the extent to which the “traditional” interpretation is in need of re-investigation.     

Alternative narratives and collective memories: Israel's New Historians and the use of historical context

Abstract

The article presents a new overview on economic transition in Egypt, emphasizing the role of culture in shaping its recent economic history. Since partial independence, and culminating in the heyday of the Nasserite regime, ‘economic nationalism’ became a predominant national identity mark and a concept central to a local sense of authenticity. The article discusses the meaning of economic nationalism and why it turned such a powerful symbol of Egyptianness. The prevalence of this idea slowed down a transformation to an alternative economic regime when the development effort associated with economic nationalism partially failed. Instead, a huge and unregulated (‘hidden’) economy emerged, together with a corollary local consumer society. Fiercely resisted in a public discourse captivated by an older economic imagination, both have still shaped the Egyptian economy ever since.     

二战前新加坡华人“会馆办学”研究

20世纪初,新加坡华人社会掀起了一股办学热潮。会馆成了各帮创办华校的主导力量。要了解华人社会是如何在会馆主导下创办新式教育,必须对会馆学校进行研究。鉴于此,笔者以新加坡较早成立的几所新式华校为研究重点,并结合相关的特刊、账本、会议记录等历史文献,具体讨论了新加坡移民时代"会馆办学"是华人社会举各帮之力并使之制度化的一种创建教育机制的尝试。     

Political Culture and the Legacy of Socialism in Unified Germany

Almost a quarter of a century after German unification, studies continue to uncover pervasive attachments to socialism in the former East. While these attachments have been a recurrent feature in analyses of political culture, surprisingly little is known about their sources. This article systematically explores the socio-political foundations of socialist values, by subjecting two theoretical perspectives to empirical testing. Political socialisation perspectives attribute these values to generationally based political identities that were forged in the pre-1989 era. Political economy perspectives, by contrast, stress how they have been reinforced by negative post-1989 evaluations of politics and materialism. Logistic regression analyses of ALLBUS data from 1991 to 2010 test nine hypotheses at the individual level, with the results confirming the following. First, there is evidence of an age-based structure to the foundations of socialist values: younger easterners are less likely to value socialism, but the evidence of this has emerged only recently. Second, equally important drivers of these values are support for parties on the left of the political spectrum and ideological self-placement. Third, economic factors have been selective and inconsistent predictors of socialist values. Overall, the research underscores the stability of socialist values in the German context, but argues that these values remain compatible with a political culture that is supportive of the democratic framework of unified Germany.