Hiroshima
by John Hersey · first published 1702
62% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Vivid first-person accounts of survivors' experiences in the hours and year after the bombing make an abstract tragedy concrete; a short read that suits anyone wanting empathy and historical perspective.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Describes the effect of the bombing of Hiroshima on six survivors of the atomic blast.
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I cope with it by learning more about it. Books I've read and recommend include: Command and Control by Eric Schlosser, The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, Hiroshima by John Hersey, The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. More generally I have taken an interest in existential risk, and can recommend The Precipice by Toby Orb. I am going to die one day or…
on “Ask HN: How do you cope with possible nuclear threat?” ↗I also grew up in the US. In my high school we read the book "Hiroshima" by John Hersey, which tells what happened that day, according to survivors. I recall it being a powerful read. Gave me a tremendous amount of perspective and empathy for the victims. There is some historical…
on “Former Hiroshima Branch of the Bank of Japan” ↗Threads is one of the most memorable things I have watched. It is incredibly dark and unremittingly bleak. Books that informed my understanding of nuclear war and that I recommend are: Hiroshima by John Hersey, Command and Control by Eric Schlosser, The Doomsday Machine by (recently deceased) Daniel Ellsberg.
on “Threads: The BBC drama which affected a generation of viewers” ↗The book Hiroshima by John Hersey has many accounts like this. It’s a short read and follows six people and covers the first year after the bombing. I’d highly recommend reading it if such accounts are interesting to you.
on “Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo” ↗Reading this makes me so sad and reminded me of a book I read years ago: Hiroshima by John Hersey - about the first-person narrative account of survivors who witnessed the impact of atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima that morning.
on “My Family and the Flood” ↗I'd recommend subscribing to the New Yorker. You're supporting great writing and there's enough incredible pieces in the archives for a lifetime of reading. For example, John Hersey's piece "Hiroshima"[1] is perhaps one of the most consequential pieces of 20th century long-form journalism and also an engrossing read. It was later published as a short book. [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima?intc...
on “Ask HN: What periodicals have great long-form articles?” ↗For those interested, I believe John Hersey’s Hiroshima is still the leading English language work on the experiences of hibakusha during the bombings and their immediate aftermath.
on “‘A ball of blinding light’: Atomic bomb survivors share their stories” ↗In light of the release of Oppenheimer, people have been talking about, basically, the other side of the development of atomic weapons. John Hersey's "Hiroshima" article from the August 23, 1946 edition of the New Yorker came up as the definitive piece on the immediate impact of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, and it is a gripping read: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima
on “'Phantom' A-bomb film 'Hiroshima,' with 88,000 extras, set for July 30” ↗It’s been posted on HN before, but if this topic interests you, John Hersey’s famous reporting on the aftermath at Hiroshima (entitled “Hiroshima”) is worth reading. It’s essentially a short book, but the accounts laid out in the story make the impersonal tragedy into something that’s tangible. It should be required reading.
on “Tsutomu Yamaguchi – A man who survived both atomic bombings (2023)” ↗…in-depth article probably starts at about 6,000 words (12 pages in book print, often less typeset for a newspaper or magazine), and can easily run 15, 30, 60, 90 thousand words, or more. John Hersey's Hiroshima was published in the 31 August 1946 issue of the New Yorker. I don't find the page-count of that issue though I suspect it was on the order of 80 pages. The book version runs 166 pages, or about 80,000…
on “I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books” ↗There is a book named Hiroshima by John Hersey about the aftermath of the bomb dropping on Hiroshima. It is interviews with survivors and tells the story in detail through their eyes in story form; the immediate effect, the days after…
on “Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and Testimonials)” ↗My understanding is that they have very rarely done this; John Hersey's pulitzer prize winning article on Hiroshima was one of the few other examples of dedicating the entire magazine to a single article. So, "gravity" all the way. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_(book)
on “The Plague Year” ↗Thank you for sharing -- last summer in August 2020, PBS Newshour also covered a new book about Hersey and 75 years from the Hiroshima bomb: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-intrepid-journalist-wh... And here's the book, "Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World" https://www.amazon.com/Fallout-Hiroshima-Cover-up-Reporter-R...
on “The Plague Year” ↗One of the sources for John Hersey’s book Hiroshima is being published as a separate book. The daughter of the writer of the book survived in the ruins of the church seen in some of the photos of the aftermath.
on “'Everywhere there were pitifully injured people':how a newly unearthed memoir '” ↗