Fallout

I read John Hersey's haunting [b:Hiroshima 27323 Hiroshima John Hersey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657555929l/27323.SY75.jpg 1014091] decades ago, but TIL that it almost didn't see the light of day. The US government tried to suppress any information about the horrific effects of dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so we wouldn't look like bad guys. Without the book's unflinching portrayal of six Hiroshima survivors, Americans wouldn't have known that what happened on August 6, 1945 was much worse than a “very large bomb,” and realized the terrible power of radiation poisoning. Once they understood that the same thing could happen here, the dynamics of the Cold War changed significantly. I wish Blume had provided more insight into what made John Hersey tick. Even without that information, Fallout is a critical reminder that strong, independent journalism is needed to speak truth to power.

Powerful History. This is a history not of the actual nuclear detonation at Hiroshima, but of one man's efforts to uncover the coverup of just how horrific that nuclear detonation was. On August 31, 1946 - just over a year after said detonation - John Hersey published a four part expose in The New Yorker about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, and its immediate aftermath. It dominated that month's print issue, supplanting both regular (and popular) cartoons and columns, and it would go on to become its generation's Pentagon Papers or Edward Snowden. This book tells that history, the history of how Hersey was able to write the expose and its effects, including a discussion of Hersey's followup piece 40 years later called Hiroshima: The Aftermath. And it does the entire history a great deal of justice in its easy to read narrative and comprehensive approach - this is the singular most well documented book I've ever read, with nearly 40% of the text of the book being its bibliography. That it is publishing the week of the 75 anniversary of the bombing is spot-perfect timing as well. Very much recommended.

Footnote: In 2015, The New Yorker published Hersey's original Hiroshima essay on its website, where it remains at least to the time of the writing of this review. If you've never actually read that essay, or indeed are like me and had never even heard of that essay before reading this book, I also very much going to that site and reading this 30K word essay on the horrors of nuclear weapons, as told by some of the only people to have been able to tell the tale.