David Howland Bergamini (11 October 1928 – 3 September 1983, in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

) was an American author who wrote books on 20th-century history and popular science, notably mathematics. Bergamini was interned as an Allied civilian in a Japanese

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

with his mother and father, John Van Wie Bergamini, an architect who worked for the American Episcopal Mission in China, Japan, the Philippines and Africa, and younger sister for the duration of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. From 1949 to 1951 Bergamini studied at Merton College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. In 1951 he joined ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' as a reporter; in 1961 he was appointed Assistant Editor of ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'' magazine. According to Professor Charles Sheldon of the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

, his 1971 book on ''Japan's Imperial Conspiracy'' "is a polemic which, to our knowledge, contradicts all previous scholarly work.... Specialists on Japan have unanimously demolished Bergamini's thesis and his pretensions to careful scholarship.Charles D. Sheldon, "Japanese Aggression and the Emperor, 1931-1941, from Contemporary Diaries," ''Modern Asian Studies'' 10#1 (1976) pp 1–40; quote on p. 1
online
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Partial bibliography

* ''The Fleet in the Window'' (a novel published in 1961) * ''The Universe'' ( Life Nature Library) (1962; revised 1966, 1967) * ''Mathematics'' ( Life Science Library) (1963) * ''Australia, Its Land and Wildlife'' (1964) * ''The Scientist'' (Life Science Library) (1965) * '' Japan's Imperial Conspiracy'' (1971), * ''Venus Development'' (a novel published in 1976)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergamini, David 1928 births 1983 deaths 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American male writers American science writers American historical novelists American war novelists Dartmouth College alumni 20th-century American historians American male novelists American male non-fiction writers Alumni of Merton College, Oxford