Fall 2025      Volume 53, Number 4

The “Bates” Shop: Fishing for Primary Source Documents: The Atomic Debate:  Moral Questions in History
By David Bates

Document: Column  

Introductory Paragraph:  “Should we judge people of past eras for moral failings?” (BBC, 2013). Though the question is from a BBC article from more than a decade ago, the question is an eternal one. As early as the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Thucydides opined that history is always subject to moral judgment. Writing on the Peloponnesian War, he noted that people “adapt their memories to suit their sufferings” (“Thucydides,” 1954, p. 127). Contemporary historians, too, struggle with this responsibility: “[N]o work of history of which I’m aware has ever been written without making some kind of statement—explicitly or implicitly, consciously or subconsciously—about where its subjects lie along the ubiquitous spectrum that separates the admirable from the abhorrent” (Gaddis, 2002). Indeed, these sorts of questions are not a corollary or adjunct to historical thought. They are rather its very essence. As John Lewis Gaddis (2002) concisely put it, “[Y]ou cannot escape thinking about history in moral terms” (p. 122).  This presents a unique opportunity for teachers of literacy. In the pages to follow, I will lay out a series of sources relating to the United States’ bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. I propose that you examine these sources in light of a simple question—the same question I ask my own students each semester: Was the United States’ use of atomic weapons against Japan justified? The specific form that this question takes is up to you. It might include a structured debate, an informal discussion, the construction of argumentative essays, or any number of other paths. All, however, are centered on that controversial question.

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.33600/IRCJ.53.4.2025.66

Page Numbers:   66-74