OVERVIEW

Few events are so ingrained into the American psyche and popular culture as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite the attack’s centrality in America’s road to war narrative, most Americans know very little about the causes of the event. Our abridged understanding goes something like this: on December 7, 1941, the empire of Japan launched a sneak attack against the United States for no reason. Japan’s ambassadors had been engaged in discussions with American diplomats as a smokescreen, masking the “evil empire’s” true intentions—world domination. This retelling of the events is not only inaccurate, it does disservice to history.

On November 5, 2016, Utica College’s Center for Historical Research will hold its annual @Series Symposium commemorating essential events in American and world history. This year’s symposium, Pearl Harbor@75, will examine the attack on Pearl Harbor from diverse perspectives—cultural, economic, military, national, political, and social—with the intention of creating a sustained dialog to facilitate a greater understanding of this seminal event in world history.

VIEW PROGRAM SCHEDULE →