After Hiroshima The United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945–1965

By emphasising the role of nuclear issues, After Hiroshima, published in 2010, provides an original history of American policy in Asia between the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan and the escalation of the Vietnam War. Drawing on a wide range of documentary evidence, Matthew Jones charts the development of American nuclear strategy and the foreign policy problems it raised, as the United States both confronted China and attempted to win the friendship of an Asia emerging from colonial domination. In underlining American perceptions that Asian peoples saw the possible repeat use of nuclear weapons as a manifestation of Western attitudes of 'white superiority', he offers new insights into the links between racial sensitivities and the conduct of US policy, and a fresh interpretation of the transition in American strategy from massive retaliation to flexible response in the era spanned by the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. In the shadow of Hiroshima: the United States and Asia in the aftermath of Japanese defeat; 2. The Korean War, the atomic bomb, and Asian-American estrangement; 3. Securing the East Asian frontier: stalemate in Korea and the Japanese peace treaty; 4. A greater sanction: the defence of South East Asia, the advent of the Eisenhower administration and the end of the Korean War; 5. 'Atomic madness': massive retaliation and the Bravo test; 6. The aftermath of Bravo, the Indochina crisis, and the emergence of SEATO; 7. 'Asia for the Asians': the first Offshore Islands crisis and the Bandung Conference; 8. A nuclear strategy for SEATO and the problem of limited war in the Far East; 9. Massive retaliation at bay: US-Japanese relations, nuclear deployment, and the limited war debate; 10. The second Offshore Islands crisis and the advent of flexible response; 11. The Chinese bomb, American nuclear strategy in Asia, and the escalation of the Vietnam War; Conclusion; Bibliography.