is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese historian, currently teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara

University of California, Santa Barbara

The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...

 where he is director of the Cold War Studies program. His current field of research includes the political history of the Russian Revolution of 1917

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

 and Soviet–Japanese relations. He also reads and speaks English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, and Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 which gives him a different perspective when analyzing Soviet-Japanese-US relations.

Racing the Enemy

In Racing the Enemy, Hasegawa puts forward the view that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...

 were not the main decisive factor in the Japanese decision to surrender, ending World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, specifically the Pacific Theater

Pacific War

The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...

. Instead, Hasegawa looks to the breaking of the Neutrality Pact by the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and the imminent fall of Manchuria

Manchuria

Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...

 and Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

 to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
Professor Hasegawa distinguishes his viewpoint from earlier critics of the bombing who argued that Truman's underlying concern was to showcase US military prowess as a deterrent to Stalin's ambitions. Rather, he emphasizes influences on Japanese decision making independent of the atomic events. Geoffery Jukes, writing in an academic press affiliated with the University of Melbourne, summed it up thusly: "[Professor Hasegawa] demonstrates conclusively that it was the Soviet declaration of war, not the atomic bombs, that forced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally."

Publications

• Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
  , 2006. ISBN 978-0674016934

• The Northern Territories Dispute and Russo-Japanese Relations. Vol. 1: Between War and Peace, 1967–1985. Vol. 2: Neither War Nor Peace, 1985–1998. (Berkeley: International and Area Studies Publications, University of California at Berkeley, 1998.)

• Edited with Jonathan Haslam and Andrew Kuchins, Russia and Japan: An Unresolved Dilemma between Distant Neighbors (UC Berkeley, International and Area Studies, 1993).

• Roshia kakumeika petorogurado no shiminseikatsu ["Everyday Life of Petrograd during the Russian Revolution"] (Chuokoronsha, 1989).

• The February Revolution of Petrograd, 1917 (U. Washington Press, 1981). Table of Contents, Precis.

External links

• Hasegawa's UCSB History Department faculty page