Hiroshima - John Hersey

Despite having an interest in History at school, I never seemed to study much about the Second World War. My A-level studies finished at 1914 and anything I learnt before then disappeared through the escape tunnels of my memory. Now, when studying is not compulsory, I am finding History a rewarding interest. Following my recent books of choice about Anne Frank and life in the WWII concentration camps, I have shifted my reading matter to Hiroshima. Again, this is an area of History I feel I need to know more about. I did a search on Amazon, came up with a list of titles and ordered them from the library. Hiroshima by John Hersey arrived yesterday and I ...  Read the complete review

When I was at college during the early 1980's, I remember a friend of mine (a glass-is-half-full kind of guy) saying that he didn't think anyone would ever use nuclear weapons. That, when push came to shove, no-one could actually press the button. It was only some time afterwards it struck me... someone already had. Twice. The people of Hiroshima were expecting to be bombed. The air raid siren would regularly sound at around 7am every morning, when an American weather plane flew over. August 6th, 1945, was no different in that respect. But when radar operators saw only three planes coming, they presumed it was just a ...  Read the complete review

As the title suggests, this book is based around the terrible tragedy that was the Hiroshima bomb. Not a light read at all, but a very emotional, saddening and gut-wrenching book about one of the worst chapters in our history. This book has opened my eyes to the things that went on in Hiroshima at the time of the a-bomb, how the people were effected and how terribly devastating the whole thing was. Were it not for reading this book I would still see the atom bomb on Hiroshima as just a terrible thing that happened and would still only associate it with that picture of the burned children which is always in any school history textbook. Hiroshima follows the ...  Read the complete review