Historical Narratives and National Identity

Thousands of people have gathered in Hiroshima - including representatives from 120 countries - to come together with a renewed call for nuclear disarmament.

America's use of the atom bomb on the Japanese city, followed by Nagasaki a few days later, remains the only time in human history that nuclear weapons have been deployed in armed conflict.

To some, it was a decisive turning point in WW2 - the moment where the Axis powers realised they were destined for defeat. But to others, including Jeremy Corbyn, the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were crimes against humanity. Could both things be true?

And why has the long shadow of the second world war made it so difficult for nations to look at their own histories objectively?

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