Princeton, 213 pp., $5.00
Herbert Feis, who comes close to being our official national diplomatic historian, has revised Japan Subdued, his 1961 study of the decision to drop the atomic bomb. Feis has served as Special Consultant to three Secretaries of War; he has had privileged access to important sources, such as the private papers of Averell Harriman, and his books often contain vital information not available to most historians. Those familiar with recently declassified materials on the Hiroshima decision, however, will not find much new in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II. What they will find is a sober but uncertain book by a scholar who has tried to fit new material into old molds, while avoiding serious criticism of the eminent officials he has known.
Review, 6008 words
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