Hiroshima Nagasaki The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath

by Ham, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781250070050
• ISBN10: 1250070058
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-08-04
• Publisher: Picador

Summary

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. In this gripping narrative, Ham demonstrates convincingly that misunderstandings and nationalist fury on both sides led to the use of the bombs. Ham also gives powerful witness to its destruction through the eyes of eighty survivors, from twelve-year-olds forced to work in war factories to wives and children who faced the holocaust alone. Hiroshima Nagasaki presents the grisly unadorned truth about the bombings, blurred for so long by postwar propaganda, and transforms our understanding of one of the defining events of the twentieth century.

Author Biography

PAUL HAM is a historian, specializing in twentieth-century conflict. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Kokoda. A former journalist, he has worked for the Financial Times Group and was the Australia correspondent for The Sunday Times of London for fifteen years. Paul was born in Australia and educated in Sydney and London. He now lives in Paris with his family.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Winter 1945
Chapter 2: Two Cities
Chapter 3: Feuersturm
Chapter 4: President
Chapter 5: Atom
Chapter 6: The Manhattan Project
Chapter 7: Spring 1945
Chapter 8: The Target Committee
Chapter 9: Japan Undefeated
Chapter 10: Unconditional Surrender
Chapter 11: Trinity
Chapter 12: Potsdam
Chapter 13: Mokusatsu
Chapter 14: Summer 1945
Chapter 15: Tinian Island
Chapter 16: Augusta
Chapter 17: Hiroshima, 6 August 1945
Chapter 18: Invasion
Chapter 19: Nagasaki, 9 August 1945
Chapter 20: Surrender
Chapter 21: Reckoning
Chapter 22: Hibakusha
Chapter 23: Why
Epilogue: Dead Heat