Lawrence S Wittner

Biographic Data

ID247894
NAMELawrence S Wittner
GIVEN NAMESLawrence S
FAMILY NAMEWittner
SIGNATUREWITTNER L S
AFFILIATIONSAlbany State University
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS83
TOTAL CITATIONS59
AUTHOR COUNT83
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1969
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX5

  • Forum on Scholarship and Peace Activism

    Open AccessDavid Cortright, Van Gosse et al.ARTICLEThe American Historical Review2025

    Significantly enhanced by the debate about climate change, the relationship between knowledge production and activism, as well as forms of research that bridge activism and engagement, has been discussed intensely in disciplines that address contemporary societies.1 In peace history, the relationship between activism and knowledge formation has always been an issue. While a comparative openness to activism has served as a reason for some to dismi…

  • The war in Ukraine underscores the need to strengthen the international security system

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEPeace & Change2022

    The Ukraine war and the response to it are profoundly troubling. Russia’s military assault upon its neighbor clearly constitutes a major war of aggression that shares many features with such wars of the past. Neither the Russian peace movement nor the Western peace movement has been able to affect it—the former because of government repression and the latter because of divisions within is ranks. Consequently, the war has already been immensely de…

  • The Double Standard of the Major Military Powers: The International Criminal Court and the Control of Nuclear Weapons

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2022

    In 1998, the International Criminal Court was established by the Rome Statute. With 123 nations now parties to the Treaty, the ICC, headquartered at the Hague, may investigate and prosecute individuals for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and aggression. It is hampered, however, by the fact that 70 countries, including the US, Russia, China and many other nuclear powers, have not joined and actively oppose the work of the court. Wha…

  • Nigel Young. Postnational Memory, Peace and War: Making Pasts Beyond Borders. London and New York: Routledge, 2020

    Open AccessLawrence S Wittner, Lawrence WittnerARTICLEPeace & Change2021

  • Will the Nuclear Powers Ever Be Willing to Forgo Their Nuclear Weapons

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2021

    This article examines the reluctance of nuclear-armed nations to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons. After the U.S. government produced and used nuclear weapons to obliterate Japanese cities in 1945, a nuclear arms race ensued among a limited number of nations. Although treaties, agreements, and unilateral actions eventually reduced the number of nuclear weapons in nuclear arsenals, this reversal in public policy was above all the result …

  • The Emerging Worldwide Alliance of Parties on the Far Right, Led by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2017

    Political parties on the far right are today enjoying a surge of support and access to government power that they have not experienced since their heyday in the 1930s

  • How many nuclear warheads does the United States need

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2016

    Frank von Hippel, one of the world's leading specialists on nuclear weapons, has provided us-and the presidential candidates-with an important challenge: How are we going to get the stalled nuclear disarmament process moving forward once again? Answering the challenge is particularly problematic because it requires navigating between the national security fears of U.S. political leaders and the apparent disinterest in further nuclear disarmament …

  • Recollections of activism: Hampton Institute and Vassar College, 1967–72

    Lawrence S WittnerARTICLEThe Sixties2012

    In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I taught American history at two quite different institutions of higher education: Hampton Institute (an African American college) and Vassar College (an overwhelmingly white, upper class women’s college). Despite their disparate social constituencies, however, both schools underwent a surge of social protest in which I was a central participant. This protest is described in my autobiography, Working for Peace a…

  • 核の安全』を日本はどのように学び覚えたのか--否認の政治

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2012

    学びにはいろいろな方法があるけれども、体験 はとりわけ実りある教育をする教師である。現 在、原子力がいかに危険でありうるのかを学ん でいる日本人を例に考えてみよう。日本にいる人びとが、核兵器による破滅的な体 験もしていることは言うまでもない。これ は、1945年に米国政府が原爆で広島と長崎を破 壊したときだけではない。1954年の米国の水爆 実験が、第五福竜丸という日本漁船に人の命に かかわるような放射性降下物を浴びせた時もそ うだ、この事件で死者が出て、広範な核兵器廃 絶運動が始まったのである

  • How Japan Learned About

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2012

    Although people can be educated in a variety of ways, experience is a particularly effective teacher. Consider the Japanese, who today are certainly learning how dangerous nuclear power can be.Of course, the Japanese people also have had a disastrous experience with nuclear weapons-not only in 1945, when the U.S. government destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs, but in 1954, when a U.S. government H-bomb test showered a Japanese fish…

  • Problems and Opportunities in Researching Nuclear Disarmament Movements

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEPeace & Change2011

    This essay examines the extensive and unusual research that I performed in connection with the writing of my scholarly trilogy, The Struggle Against the Bomb , a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement. Among the problems were the vast array of organizations, their millions of participants and supporters, the global dimensions of the project, and the need to examine the impact of the movement on public policy. There were also unexpected…

  • Blanche Wiesen Cook and World Peace

    Lawrence S WittnerARTICLEMeridians2010References: 4

    Research Article| March 01 2010 Blanche Wiesen Cook and World Peace Lawrence S. Wittner Lawrence S. Wittner Lawrence S. Wittner is professor of history emeritus at SUNY/Albany. A former president of the Conference on Peace Research in History, he is the author or editor of eleven books. The most recent is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (2009). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Goo…

  • The Long Voyage: The Golden Rule and Resistance to Nuclear Testing in Asia and the Pacific

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2010

    Recently, when a battered, 30-foot sailboat, the Golden Rule, came to rest in a small shipyard in northern California, the event did not inspire fanfare. But, in fact, the Golden Rule was far more important than it appeared, for the small ketch had helped inspire a widespread struggle against nuclear testing, particularly throughout the Asia-Pacific region

  • Nuclear Disarmament Activism in Asia and the Pacific, 1971-1996

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2009

    Although the worldwide campaign against nuclear weapons was in the doldrums during the early 1970s, the antinuclear movement maintained a lively presence in the Pacific, largely in response to nuclear testing in that region. Spurning the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the French government continued atmospheric nuclear testing on Moruroa in the South Pacific, sending deadly radioactive clouds drifting across Pacific island nations. In response, New Zea…

  • Communications

    Nikki R Keddie, Lawrence S Wittner et al.ARTICLEThe American Historical Review2008

  • Possibilities for a Nuclear-Free World

    Open AccessLawrence S Wittner, Jayantha DhanapalaARTICLEJapan focus2008

    In the following opinion piece, which appeared in the March 20, 2008 issue of the Asahi Shimbun, Jayantha Dhanapala-the distinguished former Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations-not only makes the case for a nuclear-free world, but argues that it is a viable possibility

  • C ombining W ork as an H istorian and A ctivist: A P ersonal A ccount 1

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEPeace & Change2007Cited by: 1

    This essay examines how I have blended my roles as an activist and as a historian. Over the years, I have participated in the peace, racial justice, and labor movements, and this activism has significantly affected both my scholarship and teaching. It has also complicated my professional life in a number of ways—absorbing time and energy that might have been devoted to additional scholarship, limiting fellowship opportunities, and (at least initi…

  • Peace Angel” of World War I: Dissent of Margaret Thorp by Hilary N. Summy

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEPeace & Change2007

  • Why Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day Events Matter. Hiroshima & Nagasaki Peace Declarations

    Open AccessTadatoshi Akiba, Lawrence S Wittner et al.ARTICLEJapan focus2007

    The 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima occurs today, August 6, 2007, bringing with it thousands of commemoration ceremonies in cities and towns around the world. Such events have become part and parcel of the nuclear era, and include the lighting and floating of lanterns in memory of the dead, silent vigils, religious observances, the chalking of human "shadows" on the ground, readings of John Hersey's Hiroshima, and leafletting

  • The Success of the Nuclear Freeze Campaign

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEPeace Review2006Cited by: 1

    During the October 1992 Presidential campaign debates, President George H. W. Bush declared: “We didn't listen to the nuclear freeze crowd. We said ‘peace through strength,’ and it worked.” Governm

  • Algeria, Vietnam, Iraq and the Conscience of the Intellectual

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2006

    History," the French philosopher Julien Benda once remarked, "is made from shreds of justice that the intellectual has torn from the politician." This contention may overestimate the power of the former and underestimate the power of the latter. But it does point to a tension between intellectuals and government officials that has existed at crucial historical junctures-for example, in late nineteenth century France (where the term "intellectual …

  • Why Bush Abandoned the Plan for New Nukes: Stopping the Bunker Buster

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2005

    Confronted with strong opposition from disarmament groups and from Congress, the Bush administration has abandoned its plan to develop a nuclear "bunker buster."This new weapon, formally known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, became the symbol of the Bush administration's plan to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal and wage nuclear war. The administration alleged that the bunker buster was necessary to destroy deeply buried and hardened enem…

  • Reflections on Hiroshima and the Anti-Nuclear Movement

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2005

    In late July 2004, as I opened the window curtains of my posh room in the Rihga Royal Hotel and looked out at the city of Hiroshima, I was struck by how marvelously it had been restored. Fifty-nine years ago, Hiroshima had been nearly obliterated by the fire and blast of the U.S. atomic bombing, which killed 140,000 people by the end of 1945 and left tens of thousands of others dying slowly and painfully from radiation poisoning. Now the city had…

  • The Enola Gay, the Atomic Bomb and American War Memory

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2005

    Over the nearly six decades since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a substantial majority of Americans has continued to defend the action. The heated controversies surrounding the opening in 1995 and 2003 of bomb-related exhibits at the National Air and Space Museum of the U.S. government's Smithsonian Institution help to clarify the bases for this stubborn defense. During the Smithsonian disputes, peace groups and historians provided a spirited …

  • George W. Bush's Nuclear Addiction

    Open AccessLawrence S WittnerARTICLEJapan focus2005

    George W. Bush might have kicked his alcohol and drug habits, but he still appears to have at least one serious addiction - to nuclear weapons.Last year, Congress refused to fund the administration's ambitious proposal for new nuclear weapons, largely because both Republican and Democratic lawmakers agreed that the world would be a safer place with fewer - rather than more - nuclear explosives in existence