Today our author Wendy Rouse Jorae writes on the occasion of Chinese New Year.  In her book, The Children of Chinatown: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco 1850-1920, Jorae  challenges long-held notions of early Chinatown as a bachelor community by showing that families–and particularly children–played important roles in its daily life. Facing barriers of [...]

In this first post of the new year, new decade, as concerns over the nuclear programs of countries such as Iran and North Korea continue to make headlines, we welcome the following commentary from Shane J. Maddock, author of Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present (forthcoming [...]

We welcome a guest post from Gregg Brazinsky, author of Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy, which we have just released in paperback.
August 15 marks a date of both historical and personal significance. It was on August 15, 1945, that Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies and [...]

Saturday, August 9, marked the 64th anniversary of America’s WWII bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. In the following guest post, J. Samuel Walker, author of Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan, discusses the controversy over whether the use of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki served any military purpose and [...]

From the Washington Post:
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III may not be sued by a Pakistani man who was seized in the United States after the 2001 terrorist attacks and who alleged harsh treatment because of his religion and ethnicity.
The court [...]

The world witnessed the first wartime use of an atomic weapon on this day 63 years ago when the United States bombed Hiroshima. Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital at the time. He survived the bombing and helped to hold Hiroshima together in the aftermath. Amazingly, he also managed to record [...]