確立されなかった対日原爆使用をめぐる定説 : 2015年までの研究史概観

This paper aims to survey literature published in the past 70 years on the use of atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. By the end of the 1980s, 15 years after the three major lines of interpretation of atomic bombings of Japan appeared, many, if not all, historians seemed to come to agree on the middle ground which reflected all the three lines of interpretation. However, in the1990s and after, the consensus among historians collapsed and historians have engaged themselves in heated debates on three issues related to the use of the atomic bomb: (1) the casualty estimates for the planned invasion of Japan, (2) why U. S. President Truman did not promise to the Japanese government of the retention of the emperor in the Potsdam Proclamation, and (3) how the U.S. decision makers evaluated the consequences of the Soviet entry into the war against Japan. Now at the end of 2015, the consensus seems to be something remote. In the meantime, historians have managed to present new lines of interpretation and new perspectives on some points before the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan arrived.