Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The explosion over Hiroshima of the first nuclear bomb reduced, in an instant, an entire city to rubble and killed over 100,000 men, women and children. It also announced a new era in human history: the Atomic Age.

Written only a year after the event, John Hersey's Hiroshima was an immediate phenomenon. Originally published in the New Yorker magazine - the only single article to ever fill an entire edition - it quickly became a bestseller and established itself as the definitive account of the bombing. Hersey's lucid prose and focus on eye-witness experience made plain the horror of nuclear weapons, clearly demonstrating the incredible danger this new technology posed to humanity.

This edition includes an additional chapter, written forty after Hiroshima was first published, exploring the devastating long-term effects of the bomb on survivors, as well as how a city can begin to rebuild after such a catastrophe.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

August 6, 1945, Hiroshima, Japan: The first atom bomb in history is dropped on a city, killing 100,000 people. Told through the memories of six survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate work has become a classic that stirs the conscience of humanity. Considered a journalistic masterpiece, this book describes what happened during the days immediately following August 6, and it also includes a final chapter--"Aftermath"-- written 40 years after the bomb, exploring the fates of those survivors. Excerpted from Hiroshima by John Hersey All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

On the basis of a return visit 40 years after the dropping of the bomb, Hersey has written a ``final chapter'' to one of the most important books to come out of World War II. The new chapter follows a reprint of the original text on the dropping of the first atomic bomb, and is written in the same spare, objective style. In it, Hersey brings up to date the lives of six survivors he covered so brilliantly in 1946. Once again he evokes the humdrum and the surreal elements in the aftermath of the bomb, and with eloquent simplicity he includes statements of other nations' nuclear tests. Compelling, unforgettable, and more timely than ever, this is absolutely essential for collections from junior high on. Robert H. Donahugh, Youngstown and Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

First published in 1946, this epic on the first bomb and its effects on six survivors is reprinted here with the addition of a final chapter. This picks up where the original left off, and gives us a touching picture of these ""Hibakusha"" (literally, ""explosion-affected persons"") who bravely attempt to make new lives for themselves, although most, if not all, still suffer the consequences of radiation. Hiroshima remains a straightforward account of the calamitous confusion, exhaustion and death during and after the bombing. Its restrained manner makes the horror of the Armageddon all the more distressing. At one point, a minister reaches out a helping hand only to find that the victim's flesh slips away as easily as a glove. Incidents like this make vivid the despair and silence with which so many of the survivors slipped quietly into death, thanking as they did a benefactor who gave them a drink of brackish water. Burned, eyeless and crushed, embracing dead loved ones, they haunt us. As we walk in the eternal dark created by the explosion, we are greeted by a hellish choir of those buried alive--the children of the infernal apotheosis crying for help that would never come. The six survivors--a clerk, a widowed seamstress, a doctor, a surgeon, a Methodist minister and a German Jesuit--are quite different but equally fascinating. Some of them prosper, some do not, and one might even be a saint. Hersey makes us question, in his addition, whether today we would want to inflict such barbarity on even our most hated enemy. Supposed economic and political justifications for war pale in the company of the flayed, the wretched and the incinerated. A truly disquieting work of human journalism, which still has the capacity to stun and shock. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.