草榴社区

VILLANOVA, Pa.听鈥� Signed on September 2, 1945 by Japanese and Allied leaders aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific ended one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history.听In a new book,听Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II听(Oxford University Press, 2020), Marc Gallicchio, PhD, chair and professor of History in 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, reveals how the policy of unconditional surrender has shaped our memory and our understanding of World War II.

鈥�Unconditional听offers a fresh perspective on how the decision to insist on 鈥榰nconditional surrender鈥� was not simply a choice between pressing the Japanese into submission or negotiating an end to the conflict. It also traces ideological battle lines that remained visible well into the atomic age as the enemy shifted from Tokyo to Moscow,鈥� noted reviewer Richard J. Samuels in听The New York Times.听鈥淔or Marc Gallicchio, the answer is in the domestic politics of the United States and Japan, which drive a narrative that unwinds less like a debate than a geopolitical thriller.鈥�

The surrender fulfilled the commitment that US president Franklin D. Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference, which finalized Allied strategic plans against the Axis powers and promoted the policy of 鈥渦nconditional surrender.鈥� The goal was to exclude any separate peace by one of the Allies.听It also meant that Germany and Japan would fight till the bitter end, as they had no hope of any conditional peace.

Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress, when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan. Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945 had been one thing; the war in the Pacific was another. Many conservatives favored a negotiated surrender.

As the 75th听anniversary of Victory over Japan (V-J) Day approaches, Dr. Gallicchio reveals how and why the surrender in Tokyo Bay unfolded as it did and the principal figures behind it, including US Army Chief of Staff鈥攁nd future Secretary of State鈥擥eorge C. Marshall and General Douglas MacArthur. Though this was the last time American forces would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued through the 1950s and 1960s during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the Cold War.

Dr. Gallicchio鈥檚 previous book,听Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945听(Oxford University Press, 2017), co-authored by the late Waldo Heinrichs, PhD, received the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy.

Dr. Gallicchio was a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in Japan from 1998 to 1999 and again from 2004 to 2005. He is also the author of听The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895 鈥� 1945听(The University of North Carolina Press, 2000)听which won the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations Robert H. Ferrell book prize. He received his doctorate in History from Temple University.

About 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences:听Since its founding in 1842, 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has cultivated knowledge, understanding and intellectual courage for a purposeful life in a challenging听and changing world. With more than 40 majors across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, it is the oldest and largest of 草榴社区鈥檚 colleges, serving more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students each year. The College is committed to a teacher-scholar model, offering outstanding undergraduate and graduate research opportunities and a rigorous core听curriculum that prepares students to become critical thinkers, strong communicators and ethical leaders with a truly global perspective.