Hiroshima

Rating:
Summary: Lasting Effects On the Future
Review: John Hersey's Hiroshima is an excellent book to display the events in a war the opposing side cannot grasp. All too often a society justifies heinous acts of war if they are summarized as "bomb" or "conflict." Hersey puts faces to the generalizations and numbers, forcing a reader to understand that enemies are people with hearts, minds, and souls. The book wasn't a question of opinion, "Should we have done it?" Rather, it was a journalistically unbiased approach to telling the survivors' stories. The novel creates community among demographically diverse readers by unifying concepts of survival, humanity, and reconciliation. Hersey's essay simply was not the redundant, overused concept of, "Don't let history repeat itself." The book was an epiphany; readers met survivors and were forced to be put in their shoes. Readers saw how the people of Hiroshima weren't revengeful, just desperately wanted the hate to end. The novel was not Anti-America or Pro-Japan, it broke all culture boundaries and lines of hate to form universal realizations. Yes, compassion and sypathy are inevitably felt, but the book did not press guilt upon a reader. I praise John Hersey and Hiroshima for letting the stories of six survivors be known - the entire truth of their pain and courage. Every day is sacred in its opportunities to change lives and have lasting effects on the future. Through reading Hiroshima, all readers are woken up to harsh realities and are inevitably changed.

Rating:
Summary: The real cost of War
Review: "Hiroshima" by John Hersey is true story about August 6, 1945 when one action would forever change the course human history. The day that first atomic bomb was used against other people. Mr. Hersey tells about people who were just going about their everyday business. A Doctor, an office worker, a priest and others. And how one event would effect them for the rest of their lives.
This should be a must read for everyone, because this what war is all about. Not glory, lose of life and untold suffering.

Rating:
Summary: A book of enormous importance - a warning to us all
Review: This book is of enormous importance. It give the most accurate and powerful literary recording of what happens to the survivors of a nuclear attack. As a nuclear war is the most horrifying of all prospects facing humanity this book should serve as kind of cautionary lesson to us all. The lesson should be that ' Nuclear War must never happen- that no part of Mankind should ever be subject again to these horrors- and that it is the moral duty of every human being on earth and most especially of all political leaders to see that such weapons are never used again.
Hershey's book is an effective document precisely because it is not ' fiction' but rather a journalistic account of what happened to real people. Let us pray to God and do everything possible that mankind will never know such horror again

Rating:
Summary: A wartime classic
Review: I gave Hiroshima 4 stars. I gave it 4 stars because this book uses real characters from the experience of the bombing on Hiroshima in Japan. John Hersey actually interviews these 6 people. Which these 6 people became the main authors of Hiroshima. I also gave it 4 stars because in the book Hersey used very good details to explain what they did during the bomb was dropped.

Rating:
Summary: The human cost of war
Review: "Hiroshima," by John Hersey, is a compact (152 pages) but powerful book. Hersey tells the story of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and of the aftermath of this act. The subtitle on the book's title page notes that this is a new edition whose final chapter was written 40 years after the fateful blast. The copyright page further explains that an earlier version of the book was published by Knopf in 1946, and that the new edition was originally published by Knopf in 1985.

Hersey's narrative focuses on the experiences of six people: (1) Miss Toshinki Sasaki, a clerk; (2) Dr. Masakazu Fujii, a physician who runs a private hospital; (3) Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor's widow; (4) Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest; (5) Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young surgeon; and (6) the Rev. Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a clergyman.

The first four chapters follow these people and their associates immediately after the bombing, up to a year later. The final chapter follows them up into the 1980s. This is a gripping narrative, written in a sober, straightforward style that I found devastatingly effective.

Hersey includes graphic and disturbing details as he discusses the horrific wounds and ailments suffered by the survivors. Particularly interesting is his description of how the bombing survivors, or "hibakushu," were a distinct group who faced unique prejudice and challenges, and had to fight for just treatment.

The "About the Author" section at the end of the book notes that author Hersey taught at Yale for two decades and is a past Chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His description of Hiroshima in the days after the bombing is a powerful portrait of a city gripped by fear and uncertainty. Also significant are the stories of the paths taken by the survivors in the decades following the blast; I was particularly intrigued by one survivor's odyssey through the United States. "Hiroshima" is noteworthy work of American literature, and a reminder of the real human cost of war.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting book, but becoming boring after a while...
Review: John Hersey - Hiroshima (1946; plus 1985 updating)

Factual account of the bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945 and its aftermath over the next forty years, seen from the Japanese perspective (on the receiving end), portrayed through the lives of half a dozen of the survivors.

This book is interesting to begin with. We get a close-up view from the victims' perspective of what it was like to be bombed by something that causes great destruction; what the death and destruction looks like, close up, with melting eyes dripping from soldiers' eye sockets etc; how many die or are injured; what the long-term effects of the bomb are; the technical details; how victims' lives are changed and how they are treated in the years that follow. - Bombs hurt real people!

Unfortunately the book is written in the past tense and the writer uses a style which amounts to a rather bland yawn-yawn-yawnish "this happened and then that happened and then this thing happened" chronological commentary with no respite...so the book has a tendency to become boring after a while. The book fails to use language in a sufficiently interesting and stimulating way.

Stars: 3 out of 5



Rating:
Summary: The depressing Hiroshima attack
Review: If you read about John Hersey's life and his life long attachment to education then you will realize that John stood for everything that is against these weapns of mass destruction war in general. So when you read this book please keep that in mind. By the way Hersey was a journalist.
This is a journalits second hand view of an incident (to some extent little research oriented). The books does not talk about the impact of the atom bomb as a whole but rather talks about the life of 6 people - before and after the explosion. There is not much emotion involved and most of the time the author has stated the facts as he heard about them. This is a documentation of a particular incident and also its impact on certain families and to some extent on the city. so please do not expect historical analysis of Japan's pre-war behavior or their acts in China and Korea. So if you consider it to be just a narrative of the explosion then it is excellent. Sometimes the author had the tendency to describe Japan as the pigeon of peace which is not really true.
Why four stars? - there are much better books with far more research on this topic

Rating:
Summary: The problem with this book
Review: This book - Hiroshima - is yet another book about the disastrous events which occurred in August of 1945 in Japan when the United States' atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Only one aspect makes this book unique: the point of view. Focusing on a third person point of view, the author tells the many survivors' stories from a bystander-like perspective. Other than that, it's the same as everything else, but that I truly enjoyed.
Overall, the book is alright; hell, who am I kidding? The book is horrible. It starts out fairly dull, but then becomes moderately exciting as you read into it. Towards the last quarter of the book, it sucks to put it kindly. It's like somebody is slowly driving a railroad spike through my cranium from 11:15 A.M. - 12:40 A.M. every other day, as I watch the seconds hand on the clock slowly creep past the six, hoping that it will reach the seven, then the eight, and maybe if I am lucky, the nine. When in fact, the clock finally reaches 12:40 and I hear the bell ring for my next class, it's like the angels of heaven are peeing liquid gold into my ears. So, do yourself a favor (a big favor), and don't buy this book.