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Hiroshima

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 17,674 ratings · 971 reviews

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 th...more

Paperback, 152 pages

Published March 4th 1989 by Vintage (first published 1946)

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May 12, 2012 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: truthiness

This book will:

1) Make you cry. A lot. You will cry on your cigarette break at work so that when you go back to your desk, your coworker will see your ragged eyes and think you just got dumped over the phone or found out your cat died. No, you were just reading about something roughly one googolplex worse, but you won't even bother trying to explain because your coworker couldn't give two shits about world history, and hadn't even heard about the 2011 mass murder in Oslo until you explained it t...more This book will:

1) Make you cry. A lot. You will cry on your cigarette break at work so that when you go back to your desk, your coworker will see your ragged eyes and think you just got dumped over the phone or found out your cat died. No, you were just reading about something roughly one googolplex worse, but you won't even bother trying to explain because your coworker couldn't give two shits about world history, and hadn't even heard about the 2011 mass murder in Oslo until you explained it to her a few weeks ago. Blind, me-centric America, folks. Scenes from this book will return when you are stuck in traffic, and you will cry some more. Do not operate a motor vehicle under the influence of this book.

2) Humble you. Calling my problems 'problems' is a little more difficult after reading this book, which is a high achievement in any artistic endeavor. Witnessing the sober-minded, empathetic will of the survivors, and the nation itself, after suffering one of the most blind, unfathomably enormous single blows dealt in all of military history really manages to put the term 'grace' into perspective.

3) Anger you. Arguably the most stomach-dropping scene in this two-part journalistic piece is not one told from the ground where Hersey largely concentrates, but years later on a television set in America. The scene featured a spot-lit survivor of the atomic bomb, a minister, a man who put tireless efforts toward assisting his fellow survivors through worldwide fundraising despite the impediment of living as a hibakusha, a sufferer of the for generations felt, infinitely complex and boundless in physical manifestations, lifelong, crippling beast that is radiation sickness, a man who championed the notion that hatred of America and anger toward the attack(ers) is a knee-jerk reaction and that it is the notion of Total War rather than that of American militarism in general or atomic warfare specifically which should be the target of emotional examination and legal action, and which should be fought against by redirecting all the power of concentrated anger rippling through Japanese society after the bombs were dropped toward the goals of peace, acceptance, and precautionary measures taken for the future of the world, a man who stood in front of the United States Senate and prayed to them for their welfare, congratulated them for their role as the leaders of Planet Earth, and thanked them for bringing peace, stability, and democracy to his nation. Here this man sat, thinking he was on a local television station promoting his charity designed to raise money for female a-bomb victims suffering from physically deforming keloid burn scars on their faces, as this is what he was told. He was lied to, to the extent that a pre-show rehearsal was conducted without his knowledge in preparation for this major television event. Little did he know, he was actually on a popular television show (similar to, say, Oprah or Real Time) in front of millions of American viewers, stunned to find that as cameras stared at his face--a face which heroically attempted but quite understandably failed to mask his sheer horrified astonishment--in front of a live studio audience he was introduced to and practically forced to shake hands and have a nice little chat with the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, a tears-feigning man who was late and drunk during the taping because he was angry when he found out he was not receiving a big paycheck for his appearance on the show, so he just got lit and showed up all tousled and disoriented. Talk about media exploitation. Man, it has been a long time since I read something which disgusted me so much, and that is saying a lot. Oh, I'm getting flushed with anger just typing about it. A lot of pathetic parading of ugly humanity happens here. Prepare yourself.

4) Scar the visual landscape that is your mind. The imagery in this thing, as told through the recollections of 6 survivors, illustrates with emotional restraint in a dry, respectfully factual narrative account, just what an atomic bomb does to a populace. Having grown up in Oklahoma City, I have seen the mind-boggling destruction which results from a large, targeted bomb attack, and distinctly recall being in math class 10 miles away from ground zero, yet feeling myself shifted in my chair at the moment of explosion. I remember wandering into the halls and, within twenty minutes, hearing the radio and television accounts, and witnessing students and faculty alike dropping to the ground in hysterics upon finding out that the city block or even the very building where their husband, mother, father, older brother, cousin, or best friend worked had been annihilated in a breath, those close to them incapable of knowing where they were or if they were. I remember my father pulling my brother and I out of school, and taking us to witness the destruction, so massive in scope, so emotionally trying, so brain-stretching and perspective-building in a way which a 13 year old girl had never even thought she would be forced to face, or had even considered in her silly, pre-adolescent mind. Reading Hersey's piece, I remembered that time, the surreal nature and bottomless melancholy of it all, and tried to imagine it multiplied by so many times it is a number I am incapable of even estimating. Hersey illustrates: kimonos permanently scarring flesh with ornamental patterns, practically faceless soldiers marching with oozing eyes before dropping to their deaths, a pan of a city of moans, of pleas for assistance which are drowned out by roaring fires which consume a landscape predominantly composed of rubble, a blazing trash heap of screams, forcing people to make non-stop me or them decisions, shadows burned into concrete, burial tombs uprooted, a sole doctor left to make decisions about who he can save, and who he absolutely cannot save with his limited resources, working nonstop for days and days with no food or water or sleep or even a single break. There was no FEMA dropping in to assist these people. There was a small handful of uninjured doctors and nurses dealing with a miles-stretching feed-line of wounded souls, many doomed to death before they even burrowed their way out of the wreckage. Sickening.

5) Terrify you. Though I always try my best to keep my ear to the ground concerning current politics, particularly the seemingly endless stream of wars conducted in the name of future peace, this book perked my ears up even more to the subject of nuclear warfare. It's so easy to hear that a nation has or could soon have nuclear capabilities and feel only the faintest, most abstract fear at the notion. It can additionally be such a distant knowledge that what was presumed to be one of the most human rights embracing nations in the world, this, my country of origin, is the only nation in the world throughout all of history to have made the decision to unleash such massive rage and suffering against fellow human beings in pursuit of dominance and stability. This supposedly great nation conducted this and one other mission, permanently damaging the genetic makeup of thousands upon thousands of people, and it terrifies me about what's to come. This book terrified me.(less)

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Dec 19, 2012 Jason Koivu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction

Haunting.

Gut-wrenching.

Utterly shame-enducing.

In Hiroshima Hersey has cobbled together the tales of a handful of survivors and woven them effortlessly through his narrative to create a spellbinding history lesson not to be forgotten. The engrossing eye-witness stories are horrifying, too real, and charged with emotion and drama without the least bit of induced melodrama. There's no need. Hiroshima shows that truth is far more terrible than fiction.

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Sep 25, 2009 Yamilet rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book had its disturbing moments but it was very exciting.The book described the experience that these six survivors had after the atomic bomb was dropped on the city,Hiroshima. Jhon Hersey included even the smallest but most dramatic details from their stories. Not just researching but to acctually talk to the people who witness this horrible event was brilliant. It is a serious and definitly captivating book.I truly reccomend this book to those who enjoy exciting world histroy book.

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May 10, 2011 Erik Graff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Erik by: Einar Graff

Shelves: history

I read this up at grandmother's cottage on Lake Michigan during summer break from high school. I had previously read quite a bit of near-future science fiction describing the effects of nuclear blasts, but never something so long describing real effects on real people. The fact that its author had been a war correspondent, involved, like my father, in campaigns on both theatres and awarded a medal for heroism on Guadalcanal, the fact that he had reason to be prejudiced against the Japanese, just...more

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May 08, 2008 Happyreader rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: asian, history-politics

I can't imagine what New Yorker readers thought reading this just a year after WWII ended. For me, it was harrowing, gripping and fascinating. I read it all in a single afternoon. Hersey personalizes the nuclear attack by recounting the experiences of some everyday civilians in Hiroshima the day the bomb was dropped.

I actually read this in the The Complete New Yorker. One advantage to reading it there is that it also includes the follow-up article 40 years later revisiting the remaining survivo...more

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May 17, 2011 Kelly Sugalski added it

3. How has this text, if at all, contributed to your personal enlightenment? Do you feel you have gained a greater understanding of our culture or the culture of another through this?

After reading through two-thirds of this book, it made me realize that most people take the things that they have for granted. For instance, the people in Japan were very appreciative of just simple water that was given to them after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Most people in America don't think twice when th...more

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Aug 25, 2009 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

I went old school with this one: I printed out the original version of John Hersey's article from The New Yorker's Web site so I could read it in its original three-columns-per-page format and surrounded by advertisements for Chesterfield cigarettes, U.S. Savings Bonds, Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey, Rosalind Russell in RKO's "Sister Kenny," Bell System Overseas Telephone Service, and Knox the Hatter, on Fifth Avenue at Fortieth Street.

This is the editorial note that ran with Hersey's story...more I went old school with this one: I printed out the original version of John Hersey's article from The New Yorker's Web site so I could read it in its original three-columns-per-page format and surrounded by advertisements for Chesterfield cigarettes, U.S. Savings Bonds, Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey, Rosalind Russell in RKO's "Sister Kenny," Bell System Overseas Telephone Service, and Knox the Hatter, on Fifth Avenue at Fortieth Street.

This is the editorial note that ran with Hersey's story in the Aug. 31, 1946, issue of The New Yorker:

TO OUR READERS
The New Yorker this week devotes its entire editorial space to an article on the almost complete obliteration of a city by one atomic bomb, and what happened to the people of that city. It does so in the conviction that few of us have yet comprehended the all but incredible destructive power of this weapon, and that everyone might well take time to consider the terrible implications of its use.
--THE EDITORS

Hersey's book-length article focuses primarily on six victims of the bombing -- Miss Toshiko Sasaki, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamara, Father William Kleinsorge, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki and the Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto -- tracking their lives from the morning of the bombing through the months of its aftermath. It's a masterful piece of journalism, and of a type little seen anymore. The article has almost no attribution and few quotes. Rather, it uses a straightforward narrative style, telling the story as it happened, and the reader simply has to trust that Hersey did the footwork needed to compose his piece. And it's obvious he did.

Hersey gives almost no information about the U.S. decision to bomb Hiroshima or the larger context of World War II, but rather focuses solely on how the bombing and its aftermath affected the city's people. The book is stronger as a result, showing the full range of horrors caused by the dropping of an atomic bomb -- in particular on six people we come to know and care about deeply.

It speaks to Hersey's talents as a writer that, despite the tragic subject matter and the physical and emotional turmoils he recounts, we the readers don't want the book to end, because that means leaving Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki (no relation to Miss Sasaki) and the Reverend Tanimoto behind. We want to stay with them, and make sure they're able to build new lives for themselves.

The book's last paragraph -- a school essay written by Toshio Nakamura, who was 10 years old when the bomb was dropped -- is particularly heartbreaking, and serves as a fitting coda for Hersey's piece. It's short enough to quote here, but really needs to be read in context. It's the perfect ending to an important, stirring work of journalism. The entire book is highly recommended for all readers.(less)

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Jan 12, 2009 bookczuk rated it 4 of 5 stars

The thing that strikes me most when reading this is how completely unknown this kind of horror was at the time. I have grown up in the atomic age, and have vivid memories of "duck and cover" and backyard bomb shelters. When the bomb fell on Hiroshima, it was something the world had never experienced. I pray we never experience it again.

This book, together with the aforementioned Hiroshima Maidens (I can't remember who wrote it, but Norman Cousins played a big piece in it, though I don't think h...more

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Apr 04, 2008 Susie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

In order to stave off the monotony of watching my students conduct library research, I picked this book up off the workroom shelves last week (I had finished grading my most recent set of essays two days earlier). I've wanted to read the book for quite some time, as it had been recommended by a friend and former colleague and it provides a different perspective on my recent obsession with the Pacific War. The organization of the book itself reminded me of another work I teach, Thorton Wilder's f...more

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Feb 25, 2008 Patrick rated it 2 of 5 stars

Meh. I sort of wish I had read a different book about the bombing of Hiroshima. This book is a dramatized account of the experience of six survivors of the first use of an atom bomb.

The fact that it was dramatized really annoyed me. The author supplied dramatic details such as the specific way in which a person walked down a street in japan a decade earlier, or dialog between the survivors and the people that were around them. I would much prefer a book that just told me what happened, rather t...more Meh. I sort of wish I had read a different book about the bombing of Hiroshima. This book is a dramatized account of the experience of six survivors of the first use of an atom bomb.

The fact that it was dramatized really annoyed me. The author supplied dramatic details such as the specific way in which a person walked down a street in japan a decade earlier, or dialog between the survivors and the people that were around them. I would much prefer a book that just told me what happened, rather than venture to guess precisely what had been said at certain moments or exactly how the survivors felt.

A lot of questions are left unanswered in regard to how the author even found this set of survivors that happened to all know and effect each other's lives from time to time.

On the positive tip, It did get the job done. I wanted to know exactly what it was like on the day that the bomb was dropped, and this book did that.

I just have no idea how the author of this book ever became a professor at Yale. It was awkwardly written, sometimes had seemingly made up words in it, and at one point was just plain inappropriate in my opinion.

at one point in the book, it reads something like this:

Soandso took a breath, closed his eyes, and died.
[line break and new paragraph]
Or so Soandoso thought, but he woke up the following morning still in the hospital.

First of all, that is a really cheap dramatic trick, like a joke from a bad sitcom. Second, this is a real person we are talking about, and a person who had suffered for decades from ailments resulting one of the most murderous atrocities ever recorded. If it were fiction, then I can see the need to drum up some intensity, or have some comic relief, whichever way you want to look at it. But I just thought that was a childish thing to write.

Overall, it was an alright book, but as I said above, if I hadn't gotten this book for free, I would have done a little research and found some non-dramatized firsthand accounts of the bombing.

(less)

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Jun 05, 2008 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: advisory-books-07-08

SUMMER BOOK:
During the 1940s, an atomic bomb was dropped on the grounds of Japan in main cities, Hiroshima&Nagasaki. The description of what happened during this time& period was so realistic and clear. The Americans dropped a massive atomic bomb on December 7, 1941 unexpectedly on the Japanese. It was justlike any other day that the Japanese did not expect anything bad, however it soon became the most tramatizing event in Japan history. Millions of people died when the first bomb was dr...more

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Sep 16, 2009 Isayna rated it 2 of 5 stars

After reading this book, I found myself very confused with many difficult vocabulary words used. I couldnt relate much to the story since it was written during a horrible time period that included bombings, starvation, and people having to be homeless. Though I couldnt relate to the events that occurred throught out the book, I did try to put myself in their position and wondered how it would have been like to try surviving. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in learning hi...more

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Jun 09, 2007 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

May we never ever unleash such great violence again, even when provoked. Although so many argue that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the least violent methods of stopping Militaristic Axis Japan, the ensuing chaos, horrific violence, and complete incineration of Japan; proves to me that there should have been another path. The book provides brutal accounts of the bloody aftermath afterwhich the bombs were dropped over Japan, and countless men, women, and children were left dead,...more

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Aug 17, 2007 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've taught this book at every school I worked it. I have never forgotten some of the images/memories that survivors shared.

Read it. There's nothing else to say.

If you HAVE read it, I HIGHLY recommend a new documentary playing on HBO this month (aug 07) called WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: the destruction of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. It is really well done and for those of us who have read Heresy's HIROSHIMA, the documentary includes the footage described in the book of that god-awful THIS IS YOUR LIF...more

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Aug 08, 2007 dianne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i read this on August 6 - Hiroshima day each year.
it is a first edition (1946) given to me by a friend whose war-and violence loving father was stationed in Asia during my friend's childhood. he didn't want Asia / war / or his father around - so i inherited this unbelievably touching, human portrait of average, and not so average Japanese on the morning of August 6th 1945 - and what they went through for the next weeks. i think it is so important for me to remember that the USA is the only count...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Haunting. That's the only word I can think of to describe my experience reading this book. The immensity of the event and its wider implications seem to require oh so much more than one feeble word in response, but my words feel sadly inadequate. What I can tell you is this: it's wonderfully written--journalistic, engaging, immediately real in all its horrifying detail.

Do yourself a favor and read it. Be moved. Be humbled. Learn and remember. It's that important.

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Aug 10, 2011 Erika L. Miller added it

This was a great about a handful of lives that were affected during and after the drop of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. I will admit that I was surprised to find that Christianity played a part in the book; I am very well aware of missionary trips that were occuring around the world but when you think on the Catholic church's lack of a response during WWII it is something that is pushed back to the back of your mind and all that you focus on is the Axis and Allies, D-Day, Churchill and General Pat...more

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Dec 11, 2008 Raymond rated it 4 of 5 stars

Americans who lived in the World War II era believed - from all they heard and read in America of that time - that the Japanese people were largely a godless people - save that the revered Emperor Hirohito was himself a god, a descendant of the sun god.

It probably was not by chance that John Hersey's focus on six Hiroshima survivors includes two Christians, The Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of Hiroshima's Methodist church, and Fr. Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German and a Jesuit, one of four German Jes...more

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May 12, 2013 Gage Mcnally rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hiroshima is the story of six people who survived the atomic bomb.The story focuses on one person at a time but eventually their stories tie together.Before the bomb drops you get to learn about each of their lives and how the war effected each of them.Some becoming very wary and cautious while some remained some calm without worry . Heresy does not hold back when it comes to the vivid descriptions of the aftermath.It is scary knowing that the United States is the only country who used the atomi...more

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May 03, 2013 Jordyn rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Perhaps being one of the most significant moments in history, John Hersey take his audience straight to the scene of destruction where the first nuclear bomb was used in the novel Hiroshima. By providing a deeper look into the scene of the nuclear bomb, Hersey provides a new gruesome insight to the lives of the survivors. In doing so, the audience is shown how appalling this event truly was, with a sense of feeling like you were actually there on the day the bombs went off. Although most of the...more Perhaps being one of the most significant moments in history, John Hersey take his audience straight to the scene of destruction where the first nuclear bomb was used in the novel Hiroshima. By providing a deeper look into the scene of the nuclear bomb, Hersey provides a new gruesome insight to the lives of the survivors. In doing so, the audience is shown how appalling this event truly was, with a sense of feeling like you were actually there on the day the bombs went off. Although most of the survivors could have lived a life full of resentment, Hersey opened the readers’ eyes to show how successful and driven most became after such an event; even with the fact that most had lost everything, including their health. A major theme that really inspired me was how even in all the devastation and loss, people still had the mind set to succeed and create a life worth living. Hersey goes on to tell the stories of six specific victims who ended up devoting their lives to become doctors, priests, and an array of other honorable things despite their hardships. Through the many trials and tribulations that the American government put on Hiroshima, it was amazing to see how a nation can come together and survive for a better purpose despite the horrific events that the people of Hiroshima had to endure. Hersey really gave his readers a new insight to an event many people aren’t familiar with, and I appreciated how he took the time to find survivors and learn how the event affected them directly. By giving factual numbers of deaths and injuries readers can get a grasp on the animosity of this event, and how Hersey is able to describe the event as if you were actually there walking through the remnants and rubble of a destroyed city. Overall, Hersey portrays the major event in history in a way that truly shows how ghastly and gory this bomb was for the citizens of Japan, while also allowing the successful outcome to shine through giving everyone a sense of hope. With that, I would personally rate this book a ten simply based on three things. First being that Hersey brought a great sense of imagery to his writing by providing full descriptions of things such as burnt victims, the city itself, and the victims who survived. Secondly, readers were provided with a full story of the six survivors lives, which backed up the fact that you felt you were there not only on the day of the bomb, but throughout the rest of their lives. Last but not least, this book should be a must read for all because it’s a true part of our history that many of us don’t know the half of.(less)

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May 01, 2013 Taylor Martin rated it 5 of 5 stars

John Hersey Hiroshima is a wonderful book! Throughout the 1940s, an atomic bomb was dropped on the grounds of Japan in most important cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The explanation of what happened throughout this time was so reasonable and understandable. The Americans dropped a very big atomic bomb on December 7, 1941 surprisingly on the Japanese. It was just like any other day that the Japanese did not guess anything bad happened; on the other hand it soon became the most traumatizing experi...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Matthew rated it 3 of 5 stars

Terror, chaos, pain, and confusion - all these emotions and more overwhelmed the victims of the first atom bomb detonation. First came the terror that is present in every air raid, the fear of injury, the destruction and chaos meted out by weapons of mass destruction, and the pain that inevitably crashes over the wounded after the initial shock passes. These feelings were not exclusive to those who were present at the Hiroshima bombing, but were felt by millions of individuals all over the globe...more Terror, chaos, pain, and confusion - all these emotions and more overwhelmed the victims of the first atom bomb detonation. First came the terror that is present in every air raid, the fear of injury, the destruction and chaos meted out by weapons of mass destruction, and the pain that inevitably crashes over the wounded after the initial shock passes. These feelings were not exclusive to those who were present at the Hiroshima bombing, but were felt by millions of individuals all over the globe during World War II. What set Hiroshima apart from those other horrific events was the sheer magnitude and suddenness of the devastation wreaked by the atom bomb. There was no warning, no siren, and no engine noise from bombers. People went about their business one moment and were vaporized the next. Preparation was impossible and there was no time even to think of escape or protection. Disaster and death were visited on the entire city and the heat from the blast burned people more than a mile from the explosion. Fires blazed into life all over the city and continued the destruction started by the bomb. Many inhabitants of the city survived, but very few were unharmed. Soon after the detonation, Hiroshima’s streets soon became full of people leaving the city as fast as possible to find aid in neighboring towns. No one could understand what had happened. How had a silent force attacked their city and dealt such a devastating strike? The few doctors who tried to treat patients were mystified by the strange injuries they exhibited. It took weeks for a rescue force to form and arrive at Hiroshima. During this time, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito finally called for peace with the United States after another atom bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki.
During the ensuing peace talks, the United States required that they be allowed to oversee information dispersal about the atom bombs. Many cover-ups transpired, and the general population of Japan remained ignorant of the atom bomb for quite some time. There has been a debate over this mass slaughter of civilians ever since. Was it necessary to use the atom bomb when Japan was beaten back so far already? The answer is still a mystery, but this much is certain: America would have lost hundreds of thousands of troops in a frontal assault on Japan’s heavily fortified and tunneled defensive lines. Whether it was right to take so many of the enemy’s civilian lives is a question that we as Christians should ponder for the times ahead. With weapons technologies advancing daily, it won’t be long before we find ourselves stuck in a rut with the easiest escape being clear: unleash another unstoppable force of destruction on an enemy’s civilian population – create another Hiroshima.
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Feb 27, 2013 Grace Zhang rated it 3 of 5 stars

There was a horrible disaster in humans’ history. That’s a classic moment that would deeply root in people’s mind. A city destroyed at exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above. Time setting at that moment, while the bomb flashed, the whole world shake with it.

A great moment should have a great book to record it. Hiroshima made this classic moment stop in people’s mind forever. The big background is one r...more There was a horrible disaster in humans’ history. That’s a classic moment that would deeply root in people’s mind. A city destroyed at exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above. Time setting at that moment, while the bomb flashed, the whole world shake with it.

A great moment should have a great book to record it. Hiroshima made this classic moment stop in people’s mind forever. The big background is one reason that I like this book. It restores the fact of history. Many people know about the outside of this event, but this book showed us the inside part.

The second reason I like it is because it used six people’s view to restore the fact. Through six survivors’ angle, we can see exactly what happened in Hiroshima. The peace before the bomb flashed, the moment, and the after. Ordinary life makes me feel so close to the history, the moment the bomb flashed even made me feel out of breath just like you were in Hiroshima.

The third reason I like it is the spirit of Japanese people. A disaster usually shows a spirit of a country. They did scared, confused, helpless, sad, and shocked. But they also showed friendly, warm-hearted, calm, determined and good manners. It’s so surprising that a race can show a strong spirit like that. It’s a spirit that I want to respect from my mind. People helped each other, they kept calm and silence. They showed their tough to face the problem.

The stories tried to keep justice to show the scene. That a nice written. The style is kind of like an outsider, use a calm and out of emotion voice to read the history. The vocabulary is a little hard for me because there are some words that about disease and describe the terrible scene. I think people who like history or who have already learned about the World War II should read it to know the great moment in the past. It’s valuable to read it.

The most impressive in the book for me is the spirit. That’s like a soul of a minority and a spirit in a country. Abandon anything else, we should learn from them. That made of a country, a strong country.
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Feb 27, 2013 MiQuel Woody rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was really clear and detailed. I was able to see a vivid picture of the events based off what I read. The book was sometimes confusing because the events was told in so many different points of views. I was lost trying to keep up with all views. I think that this book was written this way because the author felt that all the characters had a story to tell.
I like how the event was unfold and how they described it from first person view. I think that the author did this to kind of put y...more

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Jan 22, 2013 sahar mandour rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read about this "book" in an interview with Gabriel Garcia Markez, in which he said that the most important piece of journalism ever written was the one year after the atomic bomb story written by John Hersh, and published by The New yorker, on a one whole issue, reserved for it.

i searched for it online, i found it, and i printed it.

last night, i finished reading it.

it's amazing, it put me in the heart of a Hiroshima citizen, led me to see every single detail from their eyes, and at the same t...more I read about this "book" in an interview with Gabriel Garcia Markez, in which he said that the most important piece of journalism ever written was the one year after the atomic bomb story written by John Hersh, and published by The New yorker, on a one whole issue, reserved for it.

i searched for it online, i found it, and i printed it.

last night, i finished reading it.

it's amazing, it put me in the heart of a Hiroshima citizen, led me to see every single detail from their eyes, and at the same time, get the opportunity to know their experience from their points of view.. and it is not one evident point of view.. it's a different world.

i am fascinated by the Japanese way of doing things, of surviving a catastrophe, by dying because of it.. i am standing still in front of their relationship to death, not as great writers already presented it, nor as how a samurai fighter would perceive it.. but as a normal lady, or n old man would describe it.

it is a beautifully written text, about the worst thing that ever happened to humanity. And, it took me from my deepest emotions to its teritoty, i feel like i have old friends in Hiroshima, even though i dont know how they did what they did, but i definitely love them and respect them from the whole of my being.

after reading it, i spent a long time on youtube, watching hiroshima videos. i got tears in my eyes in 2 occasions: when i actually saw how the bomb was thrown and how did it explode. And, when i started listening to the pilot who threw it, saying something like: when the bomb went of, it was the end of the process, everything was over, the whole thing happened before, when we were preparing and... i felt so angry hearing him saying that!!! the moment the bomb was thrown, it was the moment every real thing started! but he was too strictly connected to his own context, he was not able to see that his context was not the bomb's human context. He couldnt see that it was Hiroshima's story (and every living city), and that story had just begun, then.

one last thing: i was amazed by the reaction of the Hiroshima citizens, towards amercican, after the bombing.

i think we have a lot to learn from this story, us arabs.
there's a lot more to say about this article/book.
i definitely recommend it, "li hiwat al naw3" :)
(less)

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Jan 12, 2013 Crystal Mallow rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hiroshima
After reading this book, I found myself very confused with many difficult vocabulary words used. I couldn’t relate much to the story since it was written during a horrible time period that included bombings, starvation, and people having to be homeless. The description of what happened during this period of time though was so realistic and clear. This book talks about the viewpoints of life, and the change the survivors had before and after the atomic bomb. I am surprised by the lives o...more

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Jan 06, 2013 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

Will be hard not to think of two paired images when I think of the bomb: the X-ray film totally exposed in the hospitals—and the surviving doctors wondering what that might mean—and the people with the suppurated sores lying down to die in the streets and then being cremated atop the wooden beams of the houses, their houses, which were also destroyed, and then the ashes being packed away into envelopes meant usually for X-ray film.

The structure now will seem self-evident; I wonder whether it wa...more Will be hard not to think of two paired images when I think of the bomb: the X-ray film totally exposed in the hospitals—and the surviving doctors wondering what that might mean—and the people with the suppurated sores lying down to die in the streets and then being cremated atop the wooden beams of the houses, their houses, which were also destroyed, and then the ashes being packed away into envelopes meant usually for X-ray film.

The structure now will seem self-evident; I wonder whether it was. There have been, since August 6, 1945, a number of these days where a first question is—'where were you?' The little millennium, where a hand slips the skein off of history, and everyone is fixed in place and reckoned as on a photo negative. (I think also of 11/22/63, 11/9/89, 9/11/01—though, it seems to me, the answer "I remember exactly where I was..." doesn't hold any interest, at all, beyond scrapbooking class unless you had skin in the game—and it's an American privilege that we have not endured an apocalyptic day: because they had August 6, and August 9, we had August 14).

Maybe Hersey gave us that turn of mind. His opener is an advertisement for its appeal—ordinary experience of one of the few days out of the historical ordinary: "Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department at the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk." Also working through 'helpers' generally, he could center the tableau on acts of practicality. The mechanics of the report are so hostile to abstraction—it is Hersey's great insight—that the things recovered are a few vivid images—suppuration, superbright light, shadows that stay (though he even includes something about "fancy" running away with that idea—he's particular). And a few small charitable acts, that were in vain, or not, as well as a few possible charitable acts that were impossible.

It seems to me that an abstract reply, a reply that is philosophical, to Hiroshima, is going to be insufficient. I don't feel this way about many things, but there isn't going to be an explanation for what we did that day, and there won't even really be an explanation for why what we did that day is wrong—not one that surpasses the description of the chain of things set in motion by our dropping it. I'm sure in an abstract way we knew what we were doing, even as today we know in an abstract way that we are opposed to Iran having a nuclear weapon, and could, in an abstract way, foresee the reality of a war stopping the development of such a weapon as preferable to the possibility of their having it. But Hiroshima makes the argument that nuclear weapons and the like make children of the people who covet them, use them, guard them, and police them, and ennoble the people who run from them, or seek to ban them, with very little in the way of luck. A little diffuse band of new Israelites—their fates are so unhappy, they must be an elect.

(Maybe we should, as Jeremy Bernstein said in the LRB last month, schedule one more nuclear test in the sky above New Mexico, and televise it.)(less)

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Nov 20, 2012 Rick Skwiot rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hard not to feel nostalgic for days when war was waged by warriors. A certain civility in that. Rules of engagement. Codes of honor. You think of Greeks, and Samurai, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade;" of French and German soldiers who meet in No Man's Land to share Christmas treats then return to opposing trenches.

But then here comes Nanking, Stalingrad, London, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Total war, as the phrase goes. A reversion to tribal days, perhaps, when warring foes fell men,...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Emma rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-school, i-own

Given I read this for school, I wasn't predisposed to like it. I found it difficult to connect to the unit we were doing, the first time I read it the story wasn't particularly gripping, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Now that I'm about to be examined on it, I've read it again, and even though I really, really tried to hate it (and succeeded occasionally), I couldn't, not quite. There are so many little images or sentences that stay with you and have such an impact. Not to ment...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Susanna rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural-japan, history, non-fiction, politics, read-2006, adult

Aiheeltaan erittäin kiinnostava kirja, joka on toteutukseltaan valitettavan töksähtelevä. Kirjan alkuosan raportti on kirjoitettu atomipommin pudotusta seuraavina viikkoina 1946, kun taas kirjan lopussa on kuvattu henkilöiden myöhempiä vaiheita. Valitsin kirjan aiheen enkä takakannen perusteella, joten syy tekstin pätkittäisyyteen selvisi minulle varsin myöhään. Alkuosan katkonaisuuteen ja haparoivuuteen vaikutti varmaan kirjoittajan kokema järkytys ja ihmetys pommin aiheuttamista tuhoista, joit...more

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About John Hersey

John Richard Hersey was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer and journalist considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling devices of the novel are fused with non-fiction reportage. Hersey's account of the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, was adjudged the finest piece of journalism of the 20th century by a 36-member...more

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Quotes from Hiroshima

“Do not work primarily for money; do your duty to patients first and let the money follow; our life is short, we don't live twice; the whirlwind will pick up the leaves and spin them, but then it will drop them and they will form a pile.” — 12 people liked it

“The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question?” — 8 people liked it

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