Book Review: ‘The Hiroshima Men' is a reminder of the horrific human costs of atomic attack
Hersey's 30,000-word piece for The New Yorker magazine focused on a few of the thousands of survivors who fell ill, and often died, from the lingering effects of radiation long after the bomb's initial impact killed tens of thousands of Japanese men, women and children.
Hersey is among diverse group of men author and historian Iain MacGregor profiles in his new book, 'The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It.' MacGregor earlier wrote 'Checkpoint Charlie,' an acclaimed history of Cold War Berlin, as well as 'The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II.'
With the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack approaching next month, 'The Hiroshima Men' is a potent reminder of the extreme human costs that were wrought by the first atomic weapon employed during warfare.
By profiling some key players, MacGregor pulls readers into their personal stories with visually enticing description and lively dialogue.
One was pilot Paul Tibbetts, Jr., who fell in love with flying at age 12 when he rode in an old biplane that took off from a horse racing track outside Miami. He named the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that he was flying when it dropped the atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, for his mother, Enola Gay.
Another profile is of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant scientific theorist who inspired a team testing the atomic bomb at a secret research laboratory in rural New Mexico.
There's also Maj. Gen. Henry 'Hap' Arnold, who led the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II and understood what could be achieved with the faster long-range B-29 bomber, which could travel farther and fly much higher than the popular B-17 that had been used on Europe.
MacGregor also introduces us to Senkichi Awaya, the mayor of Hiroshima, a city founded in the late 1580s by a powerful warlord who built a castle headquarters on the shores of a strategically located bay.
There are many more.
The most powerful sections of the book come toward the end, when MacGregor describes the ghastly aftermath of the bombing — a gruesome hellscape littered with charred bodies and stunned survivors with skin dangling from their bodies and eyes hanging from the sockets.
He then invites readers to reflect on the event's profound costs:
'I hope, looking right across the experience of this terrifying and cataclysmic event, that you, the reader, can judge for yourself whether this journey through the experiences of a city mayor, a bomber pilot, an Army general and an award-winning journalist, who all were intimately connected to Hiroshima, was worth it.'
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Woodard is a composer who infamously wrote a "prequiem"—that is, a "pre requiem"—in 2001 for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who had murdered 168 people with a truck bomb. The piece was to be performed at a church near McVeigh's execution site in Terre Haute, Indiana, then recorded and played on the radio so that McVeigh would have a chance to hear it. According to the LA Times, which spoke to the composer, "Woodard's hope in performing the 12-minute piece, he said, is to 'cause the soul of Timothy McVeigh to go to heaven.'" According to BBC coverage from the time, Woodard "says McVeigh is '33 and nearly universally despised at the time of his execution'—like Jesus Christ." Hoo boy. Woodard also had a scheme to help save Nueva Germania, an 1880s colony in Paraguay that was designed to let German culture flourish away from the influence of European Jews. Friedrich Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth, was one of the founding colonists. 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Pomegranates are a seriously underrated fruit. This ruby red gem is delicious and tart -- tasting great by itself, in drinks like Ina Garten's festive holiday batch cocktail, and even in savory dishes. Whether you like to eat pomegranates as is or use them in cooking, you can thank one country for producing mass amounts of pomegranates: India. India single-handedly leads pomegranate production, producing 2.4 million metric tons of pomegranates each year. In comparison to other countries, India produces nearly double the amount of pomegranates than any other country in the world. India has been a consistent leader in pomegranate production thanks to its hot climate, which has proven to be ideal for producing not only pomegranates but other fruits, too. India also happens to be the country that produces the most bananas for similar reasons. As such, this means that the pomegranates you grab from the store are more than likely exported from India's crop. Read more: 13 Meats People Used To Eat, But Are Now Illegal In The US Pomegranate Production Around The World Part of what makes India's pomegranate production so high is the fact that the fruit is grown year-round, making the exports continuous. Most of the pomegranates from India are produced in a state known as Maharashtra, which makes a majority of India's exported pomegranates. Several varieties of pomegranates are grown here and throughout India, such as Ganesh and Arakta pomegranates. Outside of India, pomegranates are also grown in other countries throughout the Middle East and Asia. Major pomegranate-producing countries include Egypt, China, Iran, and more. There is also some production in Europe from Spain and Turkey, as well as some additional production in countries outside of Eurasia, like Peru and Israel. These do not contribute nearly as heavily as the countries located in Asia and the Middle East. Out of all of these countries, China and Iran are the only countries besides India to produce more than a million metric tons of pomegranates per year. China produces roughly 1.6 million tons of pomegranates annually, with Iran following closely behind with 1.1 million metric tons. From there, production drastically drops to 559,000 metric tons and 380,000 metric tons from Turkey and Egypt, respectively. Read the original article on Chowhound. Solve the daily Crossword
