Institute of Historical Research

The Muses of War: Terror, Anger, and Faith during the Bombing of British and Japanese Cities, 1940-1945

Chair: Naoko Shimazu

(Birkbeck)

Aaron Moore

(University of Manchester)

The bombing war was an attack on urban citizens that was largely new to human history, producing many strange effects and experiences. The soldiers’ battlefield was distant, but in an age of ‘total war’ mobilisation the enemy’s targets included the civilian population; in both Japan and Britain, this could be baffling to ordinary people, who were more accustomed to the idea of adult male servicemen facing the threat of death in some far-flung ‘no man’s land’. This lecture will aim to compare the civilian narratives of urban residents in Britain and Japan, with a special focus on regional cities including Coventry, Aomori, Hull, Kōfu, Bristol, and Nagoya, as well as ‘second cities’ such as Osaka and Manchester. Because national governments were committed to defending their capitals, regional cities were sometimes more thoroughly subjected to enemy bombardment. For vulnerable urban residents, even though they understood the cause of their suffering to be the enemy’s modern military technology, the sudden descent of fire from the skies inspired superstitious, religious, and magical views in personal documents. The conflation of aerial bombardment with emotional responses and supernatural beliefs across both Britain and Japan suggests that their urban residents were similarly unready for the transformation of the home front into the battlefront, drawing from a variety of discourses in order to make sense of this new kind of warfare.

A joint session with the Rethinking Modern Europe and Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series.

Institute of Historical Research

The Muses of War: Terror, Anger, and Faith during the Bombing of British and Japanese Cities, 1940-1945

Chair: Naoko Shimazu

(Birkbeck)

Aaron Moore

(University of Manchester)

The bombing war was an attack on urban citizens that was largely new to human history, producing many strange effects and experiences. The soldiers’ battlefield was distant, but in an age of ‘total war’ mobilisation the enemy’s targets included the civilian population; in both Japan and Britain, this could be baffling to ordinary people, who were more accustomed to the idea of adult male servicemen facing the threat of death in some far-flung ‘no man’s land’. This lecture will aim to compare the civilian narratives of urban residents in Britain and Japan, with a special focus on regional cities including Coventry, Aomori, Hull, Kōfu, Bristol, and Nagoya, as well as ‘second cities’ such as Osaka and Manchester. Because national governments were committed to defending their capitals, regional cities were sometimes more thoroughly subjected to enemy bombardment. For vulnerable urban residents, even though they understood the cause of their suffering to be the enemy’s modern military technology, the sudden descent of fire from the skies inspired superstitious, religious, and magical views in personal documents. The conflation of aerial bombardment with emotional responses and supernatural beliefs across both Britain and Japan suggests that their urban residents were similarly unready for the transformation of the home front into the battlefront, drawing from a variety of discourses in order to make sense of this new kind of warfare.

A joint session with the Rethinking Modern Europe and Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series.

Institute of Historical Research

War, the state, and the formation of the North Korean industrial working class, 1931-1960

Dr Owen Miller

(SOAS)

Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

War, the state, and the formation of the North Korean industrial working class, 1931-1960

Dr Owen Miller

(SOAS)

Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

No Country for Old Crocodiles: Fraudulent Paperworks, the Commodity Fetish, and Political Ecology in Colonial Burma

Dr Jonathan Saha

(University of Leeds)

Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

Forging India's Democratic Citizenship: The Preparation of the First Elections 1947-1952

Dr Steven Ericson

(Dartmouth College)

Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

'Islands in Asian History': an opening roundtable event

The Dilemmas of Islanding: Sri Lanka in the Early Modern Period

Dr Zoltan Biedermann | UCL

Commodity and Sovereignty Production in the North Pacific: The Marcus Island Incident of 1902

Dr Paul Kreitman | IHR

Islands, Ports, and Maritime Networks in Nineteenth Century

Dr Jeppe Mulich | LSE

Heligoland: Notes on a (Very) Small Island

Dr Jan Rueger | Birkbeck

Comparative Histories of Asian seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond

Dr Micah Muscolino

(University of Oxford)

Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond

Dr Micah Muscolino

(University of Oxford)

Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

Rashid al-Din, Bolad Chengxiang, and Cultural Administration in the Mongol Empire: Imperial Ambitions and Local Identities in the Production of Art, History, and Science

Dr Vivienne Lo

(UCL)

Comparative Histories of Asia seminar series