A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory

by Emily S. Rosenberg

December 7, 1941—the date of Japan’s surprise attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor—is "a date which will live" in American history and memory, but the stories that will live and the meanings attributed to them are hardly settled. In movies, books, and magazines, at memorial sites and public ceremonies, and on television and the internet, Pearl Harbor lives in a thousand guises and symbolizes dozens of different historical lessons. In A Date Which Will Live, historian Emily S. Rosenberg examines the contested meanings of Pearl Harbor in American culture.
Rosenberg considers the emergence of Pearl Harbor’s symbolic role within multiple contexts: as a day of infamy that highlighted the need for future U.S. military preparedness, as an attack that opened a "back door" to U.S. involvement in World War II, as an event of national commemoration, and as a central metaphor in American-Japanese relations. She explores the cultural background that contributed to Pearl Harbor’s resurgence in American memory after the fiftieth anniversary of the attack in 1991. In doing so, she discusses the recent “memory boom” in American culture; the movement to exonerate the military commanders at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short; the political mobilization of various groups during the culture and history "wars" of the 1990s, and the spectacle surrounding the movie Pearl Harbor. Rosenberg concludes with a look at the uses of Pearl Harbor as a historical frame for understanding the events of September 11, 2001.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, American History

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book forces the reader to ask, what makes history? Cultural memory? Individual experience? Facts and statistics? Who decides what makes the cut? Rosenberg examines how the event of Pearl Harbor was and is remembered. Throughout the first 50 years versus modern connotations, the moment has held many different meanings and representations, often diametrically opposed to one another. Whether it was a backdoor into war, a lesson in the importance of updating and maintaining intelligence agencies, or the beginning of the "greatest generation" Pearl Harbor has come to mean so much to so many. But, is it history?

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice overview of many of the ways that the "history/memory" (as Rosenberg puts it) of Pearl Harbor played out in subsequent history and American culture and politics. The book's concluding chapter, which focuses on the comparison between Pearl Harbor and 9/11, is one of the strongest and most compelling parts of the book. A quick read and very nice overview.

[Dwight · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for introducing the concept of History and Memory to a wider audience as well as a great discussion of how ideas of "the truth" get circulated and reproduced.

[Maggie]

Really enjoyable read.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read and very enjoyable. Look forward to watching Tora Tora Tora again this December with a new perspective.

[Tasha]

A pretty good, quick read. A little shallow though. And I wish it was an e-book, weirdly.