Area of Expertise: History of U.S. culture, twentieth-century America, American radicalism and American sexuality; scientists and politics in twentieth-century America; atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; scientists and the Vietnam War; Oliver Stone; film and history; Cold War

Additional Information: Peter Kuznick is an expert on twentieth-century American history. He can comment on Japanese and American nuclear culture, the history of American sexuality, U.S. cultural history, the 1930s, the 1960s, Vietnam, and American radicalism. Kuznick is director of AU’s Nuclear Studies Institute, which was honored in 1996 by the North American Association of Summer Sessions as the most creative and innovative program in North America. A proponent of nuclear disarmament, Kuznick is a critic of the U.S. decision to use atomic bombs in World War II, and he speaks frequently on that topic. He cofounded the Nuclear Education Project along with Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba and professors Mark Selden (Cornell University) and John Dower (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). In 2003, Kuznick organized a group of scholars, writers, artists, clergy, and activists to protest the Smithsonian's decision to display the Enola Gay in a celebratory fashion without placing the atomic bombings in historical context or mentioning the number of people killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1995, the institute and the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki coordinated a major exhibit at American University on the atomic bombings. Kuznick was an active participant in the civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements. He also is an expert on film and history and teaches a popular course that uses Oliver Stone’s films to examine recent American history. Kuznick coedited Rethinking Cold War Culture (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001) and authored the article "The Decision to Risk the Future: Harry Truman and the Doomsday Narrative," to be included in a forthcoming book titled The Second Nuclear Age. Kuznick has commented for numerous media outlets, including the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, CBS’s Sunday Morning, Entertainment Tonight, C-SPAN, Fox News Channel, and CNN, as well as Japanese newspapers and television stations.

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