Hersey set out to put a human face on the consquences of the atomic bomb. All earlier news accounts, articles and stories had been focused on the statistics, the science, and the effort that led to the nuclear weapon. Understood in that context, understanding what Hersey was trying to do and say, the book is even more remarkable.

It is not a novel; a novel is a work of fiction. It is an essay, a work of reportage. This story is true. The book is all the more remarkable because Hersey was born and raised in China, the son of missionaries, and had no reason to be sympathetic to or about the Japanese. A war correspondent for Time, he earned a commendation from the U.S. Army at Guadacanal. He cannot fairly be accused of anything but supreme objectivity. By telling the true stories of six survivors in an absolutely straightforward way, without judging the decision to use the bomb, he put an intensely human face on the consequences.

He was criticized at the time and is criticized today for taking the events that day out of context. The bomb is supposed to have saved a million American casualties (a highly suspect figure today). It was supposed to have shortened the war by a year or more. Those critics are themselves missing the true context. At the time, the historical events leading to Truman's decision were well known (although recast in February 1947 by Stinson). Hersey's goal was to make the story real in a new way. Those facts are well and good, Hersey is saying, but there were bad consequences as well. In the process, he created a remarkable book.

I was glad to see New York University recently named Hersey's Hiroshima as the best single work of reporting in the 20th century. As events unfold in the escalating nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent, everyone needs to understand the human consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. By helping keep Hersey's work before us, perhaps we can avoid another Hiroshima or Nagasaki.


"The hurt ones were quiet; no one wept, much less screamed in pain..."   September 16, 2006
 28 out of 28 found this review helpful

When the atomic bomb dropped at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was a thriving city of two hundred forty-five thousand people. By 8:20, one hundred thousand of those people were dead. Combining the broad perspective of the absolute devastation of the city with the tiniest details of six individual lives, John Hersey provides a powerful closeup of a few survivors of the atomic attack on Hiroshima, giving the carnage a human perspective.

Focusing on Mr. Tanimoto, a Methodist pastor; Mrs. Nakamura, the widow of a tailor, and her three children; Dr. Masakazu Fujii, a physician in a private clinic; Fr. Wilhelm Kleinsorge, S. J, a priest in a Catholic mission; Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital; and Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in a tin works, as they survive the initial attack, the author follows their daily movements, their subsequent illnesses, their fears, and the eventual outcomes of their lives. The victims become human, and their concerns become universal, as Hersey shows them digging themselves out and helping their neighbors, filled with an "elated community spirit" in the days and weeks after the bombing.

Details of the fires following the bombing, the unexpected radiation sickness, the mysteries surrounding the kind of bomb this was (some Japanese believed that the allies had sprinkled powdered magnesium over the city and then ignited it), the devastating rains that followed, and the monumental scale of the damage are presented in straightforward, factual style, the horrors of the reality so overwhelming that Hersey had no need to try to control his narrative by selecting details or ordering them for effect.

Published in the New Yorker in August, 1946, this anniversary remembrance had immediate and dramatic repercussions, perhaps because the focus on "ordinary" Japanese citizens, much like the Americans who read the article, as opposed to "the enemy," resonated with his readers. Thousands listened to four days of its reading on ABC radio, and many others bought the New Yorker to read his account. By raising also the question of the ethics of dropping such a bomb (which some of the Japanese agree was acceptable as a normal part of the war), he also forces his readers to consider the long-term implications of atomic warfare. Dramatic, powerful, and very personal, this account of six lives, changed forever, is a monument to the human spirit in the face of incredible adversity. n Mary Whipple



Exploding, a "Page Turner"   February 15, 2000
 17 out of 25 found this review helpful

Hiroshima, a novel by John Hersey takes the reader back to 1945 when the first atomic bomb was dropped. John Hersey takes the stories of six survivors of Hiroshima. In this short novel John Hersey describes what happened to these six survivors when the bomb exploded and what happened to them 40 years later. Switching from character to character with suspense hanging from every page I think that I would call this book a "Page Turner." I think that it was an excellent book because of how the author makes the book both interesting and full of facts. The book not only takes you back to the day of the bombing but at the same time it helps you learn the truth and pain of Hiroshima's survivors. The book gives you a lot of facts from Hiroshima as well. Hiroshima takes you into the lives of these 6 lucky people. Throughout the book you experience the pain of these people (not as much of course). Even though the book is very descriptive and at some times very graphic I give it 5 stars. I recommend this book to everyone who has questions about what happened to people at Hiroshima.


Two minutes to midnight on a beautiful August morning...   May 8, 2004
 12 out of 15 found this review helpful

... in a silent, blinding flash of white light, one hundred thousand lives were blown off the face of the earth by the first atomic bomb ever used as a weapon of war. "Hiroshima" is the story of what happened when the bomb went off on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. Six ordinary citizens were going about their day: the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto was about to unload a cart, Miss Toshiko Sasaki was beginning her work as a secretary; Dr. Masakazu Fujii was opening his newspaper, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge was perusing a Jesuit magazine, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki (no relatio to Toshiko Sasaki) was walking down the hall toward the hospital laboratory; and Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura was looking out the window, when "everything flashed whiter than anything she had ever seen" and the world turned into hell. From there we follow the course of these six people's lives, hour by hour, as the darkness descended while the mushroom cloud rose, and all around them was nothing but death and destruction. One reads this slender book at a single sitting, unable to put it down, and emerges shell-shocked, with a single question going around and around in one's head: "Why?"

John Hersey's account of the explosion of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima stands as a classic of wartime reporting. He doesn't editorialize or sensationalize; he lets the six people mentioned above tell their own stories; and through them, the horror of what was unleashed on August 6. The apocalyptic destruction of lives and property was mind-blowing. And after living through the nightmare of the blast, the survivors of the bombing had to cope with the long-term effects of radiation sickness.

The question of "Why?" still haunts us almost 60 years later. Was the bombing necessary? What better options did Truman have? The answer may be, none. A full-scale invasion of Japan, which would almost certainly have occurred if the bombing had not taken place, or if it had not been as devastatingly effective as it was, was estimated to cost a million American casualties, and probably many more Japanese casualties as well. Was it a question of committing a horrendous act in order to avoid a worse one? Probably. We've learned from history that all too often, the choice is not between good and bad, but between bad, worse, and unspeakable.

The original version of "Hiroshima", published the year after the war ended, left the profiles of six lives in suspension. The updated edition includes Hersey's 1985 article on the lives of the six survivors forty years later. We learn that, after suffering through so much in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, the "hibakusha" (the Japanese term for the Hiroshima survivors) had to put up with prejudice and discrimination from non-hibakusha who shunned them because they were subject to so many illnesses. Even so, these six, along with thousands of others, managed to get on with what was left of their lives. One finishes this book with a sense almost of awe at the resilience of these six very ordinary people who could be any six people in our own country. And even as we get a sick feeling that somewhere out there, some madman would love to push the nuclear button and unleash a holocaust that would make Hiroshima look like a walk in the park, we feel a deep sense of resolve never to let anything like this happen again, anywhere, at any time.


Hiroshima is a journalistic masterpiece.   September 21, 2000
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

Hiroshima isn't meant to be great entertainment. The point of journalist John Hersey's account of six survivors of the Hiroshima bombing (Miss Sasaki, Rev. Tanimoto, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki, Dr. Fuji, and Mrs. Nakamura) is meant to be an unbiased view of the actual horrors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that killed over 100,000 residents of that city.

John Hersey carries the book right along, never holding up for a minute. All the details of the accounts of the six survivors are written in great deal, and create a series of emotions unsurpassed by many works of both fiction and non-fiction on the subject.

For all of you readers who found it boring, I guess you didn't understand what you were getting into. This book must be read with the knowledge that it is a journalist's account of the bombing of Hiroshima, not a straight-forward work of non-fiction.

P.S. In all the new publications of the book, a detailed account of the lives of the six survivors the years following the Hiroshima bombing is included as a kind of epilogue written still by John Hersey.