Hiroshima

By: John Hersey

Narrated by: George Guidall

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author John Hersey's seminal work of narrative nonfiction which has defined the way we think about nuclear warfare. “One of the great classics of the war" (The New Republic) that tells what happened in Hiroshima during World War II through the memories of the survivors of the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city.

"The perspective [Hiroshima] offers from the bomb’s actual victims is the mandatory counterpart to any Oppenheimer viewing." —GQ Magazine

“Nothing can be said about this book that can equal what the book has to say. It speaks for itself, and in an unforgettable way, for humanity.” —The New York Times

Hiroshima is the story of six human beings who lived through the greatest single manmade disaster in history. John Hersey tells what these six -- a clerk, a widowed seamstress, a physician, a Methodist minister, a young surgeon, and a German Catholic priest -- were doing at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. Then he follows the course of their lives hour by hour, day by day.

The New Yorker of August 31, 1946, devoted all its space to this story. The immediate repercussions were vast: newspapers here and abroad reprinted it; during evening half-hours it was read over the network of the American Broadcasting Company; leading editorials were devoted to it in uncounted newspapers.

Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book John Hersey went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had told. His account of what he discovered about them -- the variety of ways in which they responded to the past and went on with their lives -- is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima.

Critic reviews

“Nothing can be said about this book that can equal what the book has to say. It speaks for itself, and in an unforgettable way, for humanity.” —The New York Times

“One of the great classics of the war.” —The New Republic

“Everyone able to read should read it.” —Saturday Review of Literature

thank you

must read , for the sake of ALL human life.

please teach and display Compassion daily.

things don't matter.

Analysis of citizens’ trauma

I liked the audiobook very much. I didn’t know much about the subject and learned a lot.

Must read book

I don't recall ever learning too much about Hiroshima in school at all. To hear these first hand accounts of people that went through this horrible event is heart wrenching. I feel this book should be read by everyone at any age to fully comprehend what happened to all those innocent, helpless people and to understand the ramifications of this type of warfare.

Restrained but gripping

John Hersey’s short book “Hiroshima” is a powerful piece of reporting. In four chapters, he gives us a series of snapshots of the suffering that descended without warning on the city on 6 August 1945; and he follows up with a chapter tracing the lives of the six survivors he focused on through the first part of the book.

One of the most wrenching passages comes in this later section. As a number of survivors join groups to campaign for world peace and against nuclear weapons, Hersey calmly recites the dates when other countries first tested their own nuclear weapons. First the USSR. Then England. Then India. Then France. And then.... the hydrogen bomb. US intelligence agencies had these groups, including some of the survivors — one of them a Methodist minister — under surveillance, debating whether they were “Reds”.

Hersey's description of the carnage is actually quite restrained. Hersey mentions people being vaporized; in the next stage, people began arriving at hospitals and treatment centers with terrible burns; in the next stage, weeks (or sometimes years) later the hidden effects of radiation became apparent. People who survived the bombing were often regarded as unmarriageable and unemployable. Cancer ultimately killed more than one of Hersey’s survivors.

It sounds horrendous, and at the time it was enough to cause a worldwide sensation. The US government was engaged in a massive coverup to hide the aftereffects of the bomb, and Hersey partially lifted the cover. For an even more explicit and searing account, I recommend Charles Pellegrino’s book “To Hell and Back”.

George Guidall narrates. If you have a book of tragic gravity, his is definitely the voice you want. As short as it is, it's a powerful listen.

Sad To Know We Are knocking At That Door Again

This needs to be taught. The lessons of, some weapons are unacceptable and should never be used against mankind. The pain and sickness caused by such a decision will pain me going forward.