The same sort of arguments are playing out in the US, albeit on a shorter timescale. I couldn't say when it started, but it's extremely depressing that the history section in most general bookstores is just a locus for narrative warfare rather than scholarship.

Of course, this phenomenon is by no means unique to these two countries. I know a Japanese author who has a small but dedicated following for his argument that nuclear weapons don't exist: https://books.google.com/books/about/Death_Object.html?id=Mw...

I’ve read plenty of good history/biography publishing in the past 50 years right up to last year. I’m not sure I understand your claim.

Narrative warfare… I guess the question is, what isn’t “narrative warfare”?

No atom bomb. Wow...that some nearly Shockley levels of 'engineers disease' right there.

Edit: clarified which part of the post I was referencing.

I get what you mean that pop hist. books aren't academic, but "narrative warfare" describes a huge proportion of historical scholarship. Whether or not you agree with it, that's the whole point of Metahistory and the linguistic turn.

What's his explanation for what happened? iirc, immediately after Hiroshima the survivors had thought the Allies had used some sort of fuel bomb.