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

by Paul Ham

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250070050
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	08/04/2015
Pages:	656
Sales rank:	571,702
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

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

Editorial Reviews

Ham's 629-page volume shows familiarity with much of the literature and debates within historiography, skillfully uses some archival research, and ranges widely in political, diplomatic, and military history… Ham is a splendid storyteller, a master of engrossing and exciting narrative. …[he] digs deeper, and brings back to life the figures who dominated this history, in a page-turner that could reach a wide audience.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“Moral anger drives Mr. Ham ... Ordinary Japanese, Mr. Ham believes, were less emperor-worshiping fanatics than victims of an authoritarian elite that prolonged the war with no regard for their hardships.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Ham presents a forceful argument that the bombing was excessive and unjustified… In this sweeping and comprehensive history, Ham details the geopolitical considerations and huge egos behind evolving theories of warfare… But most powerful are the eyewitness accounts of 80 survivors, ordinary people caught up in the events of war.” —Booklist (starred review)

“[A] vivid, comprehensive, and quietly furious account . . . Paul Ham brings new tools to the job, unearthing fresh evidence of a deeply disturbing sort. He has a magpie eye for the telling detail.” —Ben Macintyre, The Times (UK)

“A provocative look at the closing days of the Japanese Empire and the long shadow cast ever after by the atomic bomb….A valuable contribution to the literature of World War II that asks its readers to rethink much of what they've been taught about America's just cause.” —Kirkus Reviews

“An absorbing read and thoroughly researched work, it is a must-read for those interested in the mortal aspects of total war and military strategy in general. Ham's work will be cited as an important addition to a debate that continues 70 years after the event.” —Publishers Weekly

“Comprehensive and horrifying.” —Jonathan Mirsky, Literary Review (UK)

“Provocative and challenging . . . A voice that is both vigorous and passionate.” —Christopher Sylvester, Daily Express (UK)

“An eyewitness picture that leaves Dante's Inferno looking pale . . . Well documented and stringently argued.” —Peter Lewis, Daily Mail (UK)

“A provocative reassessment . . . Ham writes with anger and a journalist's eye.” —The Daily Telegraph (UK)

“With more detail than the average textbook yet written in a way that pulls you in . . . this is essential for anyone remotely interested in . . . history.” —The Sunday Telegraph (Australia)

“In his comprehensive narrative [Ham] explores the history of the two blasts with considerable skill.” —Josh Glancy, The Sunday Times (UK)

From the Publisher

06/02/2014
Australian journalist Ham (Sandakan) re-examines the atomic attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, confronting the popularly held belief that the nuclear attacks were justified because they ended WWII in the Pacific without a costly invasion of Japan’s home islands. Ham’s central argument is that such an invasion would not have occurred because the American leadership had deemed it too costly in potential U.S. casualties. Ham backs up his assertion by pointing out that both American and Japanese commands were well aware that Japan was already defeated by the summer of 1945 through the combined effects of naval blockade and conventional air bombardment. He counters the common justification for the atomic attacks by proposing that the strongest influence for the attacks was the threat of Russia entering the Pacific War and dominating Asia after the war. An absorbing and thoroughly researched work, it is a must-read for those interested in the moral aspects of total war and military strategy in general. Ham’s work will be cited as an important addition to a debate that continues 70 years after the event. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

2014-06-30
A provocative look at the closing days of the Japanese Empire and the long shadow cast ever after by the atomic bomb.The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not have to happen: Thus, in a nutshell, isSunday TimesAustralia correspondent Ham’s (1913: The Eve of War, 2013, etc.) position, as distinct from that of many authors and historians who have insisted that the United States would have suffered more than 1 million casualties in any invasion of the Japanese mainland. Ham’s lines of argument introduce several profitable data points: For one thing, the emperor seemed inclined to peace even as the peace faction within his government grew with the dawning realization of the inevitability of defeat. For another thing, the destruction of the two cities, which were not of primary military value, was as much a signal to Joseph Stalin that that is what awaited his country as it was an effort to force the peace with Japan. Ham also looks at pregnant counterfactuals: What if Harry Truman had taken Henry Stimson’s suggestion and approached the Soviets as partners, committing with the other Allies not to use atomic weapons without the consent of all involved? Of a piece with W.G. Sebald in the matter of the bombing of Dresden and other German cities, Ham argues persuasively that the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represented but two episodes in an all-out “process of deliberate civilian annihilation”—a process, interestingly, that found many critics in American churches who “quietly registered their Christian disapproval of the mass killing of noncombatants.”A valuable contribution to the literature of World War II that asks its readers to rethink much of what they’ve been taught about America’s just cause.

Kirkus Reviews