{"id":3544,"date":"2020-10-18T13:30:32","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T17:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/?p=3544"},"modified":"2020-10-18T13:30:32","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T17:30:32","slug":"jeffrey-sprung-blog-post-for-10-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/2020\/10\/18\/jeffrey-sprung-blog-post-for-10-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Sprung Blog Post for 10\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chapter <\/span>\u201cA People\u2019s War\u201d<\/span><\/i> within Howard Zinn\u2019s PHUS and the article <\/span>\u201cWorld War Two Was Not a Just War\u201d<\/span><\/i> by David Swanson both provided immense insight on the United States’ true motives and contributions during World War II. Both readings directly contradicted the information surrounding World War II that I previously learned in my history classes. First off, Zinn and Swanson both argue that Franklin D. Roosevelt provoked Japan\u2019s attack on Pearl Harbor and knew of Japan\u2019s impending attack on Pearl Harbor before it occurred. For example, Zinn mentions that \u201cJapan\u2019s strike against the American naval base climaxed a long series of mutually antagonistic acts [between the United States and Japan]\u201d and that FDR, \u201crepeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor\u201d (Zinn, 411). I was very surprised to learn that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not actually the shocking, sudden attack that it is depicted as in many American history textbooks. I don\u2019t necessarily\u00a0 understand and agree with FDR\u2019s supposed actions of instigating such an atrocious attack from the Japanese and not alerting the American people and troops prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. Secondly, both Zinn and Swanson oppose the United States decision to drop the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki after witnessing the horrific effects of the first atomic bomb, which they unleashed on Hiroshima. Zinn explains that the second atomic bomb largely targeted innocent civilians in Hiroshima, and \u201cno one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped\u201d (Zinn, 424). Zinn and Swanson\u2019s viewpoints regarding atomic bombs which the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki largely differ from previous narratives surrounding the atomic bombs that I learned in high school as I was taught that the atomic bombs were essential in order to conclude World War II. Lastly, both Zinn and Swanson argue that the United States engagement in World War II was harmful due to the damage that they inflicted throughout the world. I always perceived the United States efforts in World War II as heroic and never really considered the fact that \u201cU.S escalated the targeting of civilians, extended the war, and inflicted more damage than might have occured, had the U.S done nothing, attempted diplomacy, or invested in nonviolence\u201d (Swanson).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chapter \u201cA People\u2019s War\u201d within Howard Zinn\u2019s PHUS and the article \u201cWorld War Two Was Not a Just War\u201d by David Swanson both provided…<\/p>\n

Continue readingJeffrey Sprung Blog Post for 10\/19<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4928,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4928"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3545,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544\/revisions\/3545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}