Hiroshima

Ran Zwigenberg graduated in history from Hunter College, City University of New York, after which he went to work for the United Nations. He recently finished his PhD in history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Zwigenberg's research focuses on modern Japanese and European history, with a specialization in memory and intellectual history. He has published on issues of war memory, atomic energy and survivor politics, and has won numerous fellowships including from the Japan Foundation, the Social Science Research Council's IDRF fellowship, and the ACLS dissertation completion award. He has presented his work in Israel, Europe, the US and Japan. Zwigenberg is currently Assistant Professor in History and Asian Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

'This brilliant book reminds us of how Hiroshima and Auschwitz were first paired in the Cold War emotional imaginary and explicates beautifully the tensions between messages of peace and commodification of atrocity, and between instrumentalization and sanctification of survivors.' Dagmar Herzog, City University of New York

• Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. 'The most modern city in the world': city planning, commemoration and atomic power in Hiroshima, 1945–55; 2. Modernity's angst: survivors between shame and pride: 1945–60; 3. Socialist bombs and peaceful atoms: exhibiting modernity and fighting for peace in Hiroshima, 1955–62; 4. Healing a sick world: Robert Lifton, PTSD, and the psychiatric reassessment of survivors and trauma; 5. The Hiroshima Auschwitz Peace March and the globalization of victimhood; 6. A sacred ground for peace: violence, tourism and the sanctification of the Peace Park, 1963–75; 7. Peeling the red apple: the Hiroshima Auschwitz Committee and the Hiroshima-Auschwitz museum, 1973–95; Conclusion: the other ground zero? Hiroshima, Auschwitz, 9.11 and the world between them; Index.