For today’s post I am going to be doing a critical summary on the book Hiroshima by John Hersey. My class is currently learning about the Manhattan Project and as such we read Hiroshima to get a better understanding of the book. Now as we reach the end of the project it is only natural that I do a reflection on the book.

Before I go into my opinions of the book I want to say that I found this book very helpful.

“A Japanese theoretical physicist, Hantaro Nagaoka postulated in 1903 a “ Saturnian” model of the atom with flat rings of electrons revolving like Saturn’s rings around a “ positively charged particle”. That was a quote from the book The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes which focuses on the creating and idea behind the atomic bomb, and honestly after reading a bit of the book I think I would be more interested in it than John Herseys book. However what makes Hiroshima the more useful book for my project is that it shows the Japanese side of the bomb rather than just explaining how it was made.

The Hersey did a very good job of showing the Japanese side of the bombing and I think he successfully communicated the event in a way that would open peoples eyes and show them both sides of the Hiroshima bombing. Now here is what I thought of the book.

In my opinion I think the strongest point in the book was the very beginning when Hersey illustrates the bomb for us, the audience.

“The scientists noticed that the flash of the bomb had discoloured concrete to a light “reddish tint, had scaled off the surface of granite, and had scorched certain other types of building material, and that consequently the bomb had, in some places, left prints of the shadows that had been cast by its light.” According to  Atomic  Archive that light was seen for 3.3km and had a temperature of around 600 degrees, and I believe Hersey encapsulated this perfectly with his descriptions of shadows being burned into walls. In fact it was such a powerful description that during our socratic seminars we questioned whether or not the book was focused on just how devastating the bomb was.

Where I believe Hersey failed was in the description of the injured. At first I thought it was a strong point in the book that really gave us a look at the devastation the bomb produced. However he repeatedly illustrated the injured and dead over and over again, and in my opinion this took away the shock value from a book that was supposed to shock is western audience.

“He reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glove-like pieces”. This quote early on sets a certain tone when it comes to shocking the audience, and after the quote we don’t see anything this severe, which makes everything seem neutral. In addition the diction and tone for this section perfectly represent how the readers, and Hersey himself probably felt when hearing this, horrified and completely disgusted.

Another part of the book that I thought was well done was how Hersey created book to have sections, so that when you finish the book you can look over it and clearly see where each characters lives change. It might be hard to understand that idea so I drew a graph to define the different sections. 

In my opinion I thought this was really well done as well because as each section goes on you can see how our characters change and development which helps the audience understand how powerful the effects of the bomb were.

This is also the base of my theme for the book ( the way we adapt or alter ourselves after good or bad change factors into whether or not we survive) because in the format in which Hersey tells the story, we can see how each character adapts and develops in order to survive. The reason I chose this as a theme is because I thought Hersey perfectly laid out the story in a way that makes it so easy for the audience to see the change, so I concluded that he must be hinting at the changes throughout the book.

In conclusion I thought this book was exactly what I needed to understand the book better and it really made me come to realize why the atomic bomb is a historically significant event.