MEDIA CONTACT: Polly Burks
561-297-2595, pburks@fau.edu

FAU Visiting Scholar to Reexamine
the Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

BOCA RATON, FL (January 18, 2006) - Florida Atlantic University's department of history presents author and historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa as he examines the end of World War II and challenges the notion that the atomic bomb was the reason for the end of the war. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, January 25 at 4:30 p.m. in the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing auditorium (room 113) and is free and open to the public. (Please stop by FAU's information booth on Glades Road for a complimentary parking pass.)

Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended because President Truman ordered the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hasegawa challenges this assumption in his controversial and highly acclaimed account of the final days of World War II, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. It is the first book to look at the atomic bomb decision and the conclusion of the Pacific War from an international perspective, blending research in previously closed Russian and Japanese archives with the latest documentary evidence from the United States. Hasegawa argues that Stalin's declaration of war against Japan, more than any other factor, finally led Japan to accept defeat.

The book has received many positive reviews, including one from the "New York Times" that called it "a brilliant and definitive study of American, Soviet and Japanese records of the last weeks of the war."

Hasegawa is professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for Cold War Studies. He is the author of several prize-winning books on Russian, Japanese and American history. Hasegawa will be available for book signings at the lecture.

The lecture is sponsored by Phi Alpha Theta, FAU's certificate programs in peace studies and ethnic studies and the department of history. For further information, please contact FAU's department of history at 561-297-3840.

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