From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima: Two Historians on How America Fought and Won The Pacific in WWII | Peter Robinson | Uncommon Knowledge

From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima: Two Historians on How America Fought and Won The Pacific in WWII | Peter Robinson | Uncommon Knowledge

August 15th, 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the surrender of the Japanese to Allied Forces in the Pacific, ending World War II . To mark the occasion, Peter Robinson sits down with Jonathan Horn and Ian Toll to examine the most contested decision of World War II: the use of atomic weapons against Japan. Building from the brutal endgame—Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Curtis LeMay’s incendiary raids—the conversation explores what leaders actually faced in mid-1945: a fanatical no-surrender ethos, mass civilian suffering across Asia, Allied casualty forecasts for an invasion, and the timing of the Soviet entry into the war. Horn and Toll probe the evidence and the arguments on both sides: claims that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the quickest way to stop the killing versus the case for alternatives (continued blockade, demonstration blasts, waiting for Moscow’s shock) and the later misgivings voiced by senior U.S. commanders. Along the way, they revisit MacArthur’s return to the Philippines, the devastation of Manila, and Midway’s pivotal shift from Japanese “fighting spirit” to American industrial might—context that frames the bomb debate not as a tidy thought experiment, but as a wartime choice among terrible options. The discussion concludes by contemplating how to teach this history—through people, decisions, and consequences—to generations for whom WWII is fast fading from living memory.

Recorded on June 5th, 2025.

Jaksot(100)

How Israel Fights: Inside the Mossad with Zohar Palti | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

How Israel Fights: Inside the Mossad with Zohar Palti | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Peter Robinson is joined by Zohar Palti — Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and former head of the Intelligence Directorate in Israel’s Mossad— for a rare, inside account of how ...

23 Maalis 50min

“They’re Not Like Us”: Michael McFaul on Autocrats vs. Democrats and the Fight for the Twenty-First Century | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

“They’re Not Like Us”: Michael McFaul on Autocrats vs. Democrats and the Fight for the Twenty-First Century | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss his new book, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder. M...

2 Maalis 1h 12min

Basketball in the Last 60 Seconds: Ben Sasse on Mortality, Meaning, and the Future of America | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Basketball in the Last 60 Seconds: Ben Sasse on Mortality, Meaning, and the Future of America | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

In December 2025, former US Senator Ben Sasse announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. That’s the primary topic for this far-reaching conversation about mortality, faith, a...

17 Helmi 59min

Thomas Sowell on School Choice and the Price Our Children Pay for Bad Ideas | Peter Robinson | Thomas Sowell | Hoover Institution

Thomas Sowell on School Choice and the Price Our Children Pay for Bad Ideas | Peter Robinson | Thomas Sowell | Hoover Institution

Thomas Sowell delivers a sweeping critique of American education, affirmative action, and modern universities, drawing on his own life story—from Harlem classrooms to Ivy League institutions—decades o...

27 Tammi 1h 11min

Why Does 2 + 2 = 4? What Math Teaches Us About Deep Reality | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Why Does 2 + 2 = 4? What Math Teaches Us About Deep Reality | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Is math something humans invent—or something we discover? And why does it describe the universe so uncannily well? In this episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson sits down with mathematicians D...

15 Tammi 57min

Russian Soul, American Life: A Conversation with Ignat Solzhenitsyn | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Russian Soul, American Life: A Conversation with Ignat Solzhenitsyn | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Pianist and conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn reflects on growing up in exile as the son of Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, moving from Soviet persecution to a quiet childhood in rural Vermont. Igna...

16 Joulu 20251h 4min

Teaching Gorbachev Capitalism: Jerome Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Michael Boskin Discuss George Shultz, the Economist | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Teaching Gorbachev Capitalism: Jerome Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Michael Boskin Discuss George Shultz, the Economist | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

For the second edition of the George P. Shultz Memorial Lecture Series, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice, and Hoover Senior Fellow Michael Boskin assem...

5 Joulu 20251h 2min

Why the Cold War Still Matters with John Lewis Gaddis | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Why the Cold War Still Matters with John Lewis Gaddis | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

Peter Robinson sits down at Yale University with the “dean of Cold War historians,” John Lewis Gaddis—Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of Long Telegram author George F. Kennan and one of America’s mo...

19 Marras 20251h 7min

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