On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that stirs the conscience of humanity" (The New York Times). Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book, John Hersey went back to Hiroshima...

"'Meticulously researched and beautifully written, the true story of a Japanese American family that found itself on opposite sides during World War II--an epic tale of family, separation, divided loyalties, love, reconciliation, loss, and redemption this is a riveting chronicle of U.S.-Japan relations and the Japanese experience in America. After their father's death, Harry, Frank, and Pierce Fukuhara--all born and raised in the Pacific Northwest--moved...

An extraordinary collection of newsreel, propaganda, and home-movie footage drawn from the archives of 18 nations, including color close-ups of Adolf Hitler taken by his mistress, that present an unvarnished prespective of the war's pivotal events. Penetrating interviews with eyewitness participants - from Hitler's secretary to Alger Hiss to ordinary citizens who stood outside the battle lines - and spine-tingling, first-hand accounts to an already...

In the wake of the inferno unleashed over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, two stories unfold: that of Jim, an American soldier when the bomb dropped, and H, a mere schoolgirl at the time. Both victims of the bomb, the two cross paths by chance years later and fall in love. Together they continue Jim's ongoing search for Yoro, the little girl who disappeared while under Jim's care those many years ago.

"By August 1945, World War II was over in Europe, but the fighting continued between American forces and the Japanese, who were losing but determined to fight till the bitter end. And so it fell to a new president--Harry S. Truman--to make the fateful decision to drop two atomic bombs--one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki--and bring the war to rapid close. Now, even seventy years later, can anyone know if this was the right choice? In a thoughtful...

"On August 6, 1945, the course of world history changed forever with the dropping of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Over half a century later, countries around the globe are still dealing with the lasting effects of this decision. Some of these are physical reminders of the chaos and destruction. Elsewhere, politicians, diplomats, and ordinary citizens continue to grapple with the issue of nuclear weapons and warfare. Through photographs,...

Michael D. Gordin is professor of the history of science at Princeton University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly. Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended because the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan forced it to surrender. Five Days in August boldly presents a different interpretation: that the military did not clearly understand the atomic...

Drawing on the voices of atomic-bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology, Charles Pellegrino describes the events and aftermath of two days in August when nuclear devices detonated over Japan changed life on Earth forever.

A Japanese architect and a French actress engage in a brief intense affair in Hiroshima in 1959. Both deal with their personal memories of World War II--he by articulating his firsthand experience with nuclear disaster, she by remembering her traumatic affair with a German soldier.

In this harrowing history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Paul Ham argues against the use of nuclear weapons, drawing on extensive research and hundreds of interviews to prove that the bombings had little impact on the eventual outcome of the Pacific War.