Other sites that provide primary and secondary sources on the atomic bomb include: The History of the Atomic Bomb (http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050300a.htm)

Start with The Decision to Drop the Bomb: Truman and the Bomb, A Documentary History (http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/ferrell_book.htm), which traces President Truman’s decision process as he determined whether or not to use the bomb.

1		According to this site, why did he ultimately decide to drop the bomb?

Now read the two-part article Hiroshima: Was It Necessary? (http://www.doug-long.com/hiroshim.htm)

2		How does the author answer this question? What evidence does he use to support his argument? Do you find his perspective convincing? Why or why not?

The Decision to Use the Bomb: Gar Alperovitz and the H-Net Debate (http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm) traces the discussion sparked by Alperovitz’s book on the subject with an internet community of historians.

3		What issues within this topic seem to spark the strongest debates among the historians? Does this site reveal a prevailing sentiment among historians about why the United States dropped the bomb? How do the opinions expressed on this site compare to those in Where Historians Disagree?

Enola Gay Exhibit: Historians’ Letter to the Smithsonian (http://www.doug-long.com/letter.htm) provides a 1995 letter to the director of the Smithsonian critiquing his exhibit and asking him to make changes.

4		Of what did these historians disapprove in this exhibit? Why do they call the museum’s interpretation of these events “tendentious”? Why should such debates matter nearly half a century after the American decision to drop the bomb?