About this title: The most famous work of the Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist and reporter. An account of the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, told from the perspective of six survivors, it is written in a stark, objective voice that manages to be precise and all the more vivid for its understatement of events. A profoundly influential work that have long since been ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A Knopf, New York
Date Published: 1946
Description: Fair. No dust jacket. First Edition. Front cover has one spot of discoloration, spine is rubbed hard at top and bottom so that the brown cardboard beneath is visible. Corners are rubbed and curved. Previous owner's name and address in ink on the inside cover. Binding is lightly loose and text is in very good condition. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1959
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Nice soft cover, shelf wear to cover, light creases on spine, aging, bends on bottom corner of front cover, 1" tear on bottom of front cover along spine, soil on edges, stk #2345oo. 116 p. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780553205985ISBN:0553205986
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Owner name in front, binding tight. Pages tanned and otherwise unmarked, text clean. Small tears to a couple pages plus several creases, no stains. Some soiling to edges. Cover is clean and shiny with moderate wear.... Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 116 p. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780553205985ISBN:0553205986
Description: Fair. 116 pp; spine creasing, tears, cover corners torn, ex-classroom book; text clean, good reading copy; When the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 100, 000 men, women and children, a new era in human history opened. Written only a year after the disaster, John Hersey brought the event vividly alive with this heart-rending account of six men and women who survived despite all the odds. A further chapter was added when, forty years later, he returned to ... read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York
Date Published: 1946
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Signed by previous owner. a lot of wear to cover; cover is loose; cover is torn; binding is loose; RTB198. 3p. 1-116p., 3. 17 cm. First Bantam Books edition. 404. Bound in printed paper wrappers; all edges stained red. "March, 1948. " read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Small Hardcover
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780679721031ISBN:0679721037
Description: GOOD in Pictorial Cover jacket. Ex-school copy/stamp inside cover/# at bottom of page edges/small mass market sized hardcover/good shape/no markings. read more
Edition: Reprint. 6th printing.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York
Date Published: 1959
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. 3p. 1-116p., 3. 17 cm. Clean and unmarked inside. Square with tight pages. Light soiling and very light wear to covers. Corners still sharp. read more
"John Hersey's Hiroshima made waves in the Atomic Age when it was published in The New Yorker in 1946. I read it in a gulp on the way home from work tonight, and can certainly attest that it's a riveting, significant piece of journalism from the finest traditions of the trade.
It's also a harrowing account of real humans involved in an extraordinarily nasty event, and makes for an interesting juxtapositional reading as I read this bit from CNN on an "unrepentant" individual who tried and failed to assassinate Margaret Thatcher in Brighton years ago.
Patrick Magee, who tried to kill Thatcher, has this to say about the concept of repentance:
"I wish there had been another way. ... If there were other options open, I would have jumped at them," he said.
Pressed by lawmakers on whether he had repented, Magee said, "I don't understand repentance. I think it has a religious meaning. I can regret."
"I did what I did in full consciousness," he said. "I did what I felt needed to be done. Why do I need to ask forgiveness for that? But I can feel regret."
Also from the article:
To his critics Magee appears to be unrepentant, and headlines over the years, such as 'Brighton Bomber: I would do it again,' paint a picture of a man at best deluded and at worst dangerous," Marina Cantacuzino of the Forgiveness Project wrote.
"Magee has a problem with this premise," she said, quoting him: "It's perfectly possible to regret something deeply, every day of your life, and yet still stand over your actions," he says. "At the end of the day it's about legitimacy and who is allowed to use force. If everything is examined through the prism of legitimacy you can break it down to different gradations. Why should it just be the prerogative of those in power?"
These two pieces made for interesting reading especially as I monitored my reactions to them. To the story of Magee, my first reaction was, I have to admit, revulsion. Thou Shalt Not Kill doesn't seem to have a lot of wiggle room, even in you couch it in terms of gradations or legitimacy.
Then I read Hersey's powerful report of the bombing of Hiroshima and Cantacuzino's statement came immediately to mind:
At the end of the day it's about legitimacy and who is allowed to use force. If everything is examined through the prism of legitimacy you can break it down to different gradations. Why should it just be the prerogative of those in power?
Thou Shalt Not Kill ought to apply to countries, right? So I can't be revulsed at Magee's unrepentant attitude and defend America's actions in dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, can I? It's difficult to build a theory of the world, a philosopy of life, if you keep finding exceptions to how behaviors are acceptable in one instance, not in another. I begin to understand the Quaker conscientious objectors during World War II, who looked into the Bible's do-not-kill commandment and said, yeah, that applies to me, even if my country has been attacked, even if it is at war.
But can we use such thoughts to justify a killing, couch it in regret, but say, in all probability, I might do that same act again? Just because a nation takes that stance, should an individual, a moral, ethical individual, take a similar stance? Doesn't an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leave us, at the end, blind and toothless? This takes us down the slippery slope to relativism, demeaning the moral and ethical guidelines that ought to be the rule of law. "Wrong is wrong even if it helps ya," as Popeye says in that delightful movie."
"This strikes me as a strange little book and I have to admit I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. It has the feeling of a palimpsest - and, indeed, at the core is the 1946 article Hersey wrote for the New Yorker - that lost its justification in the process of being added to and updated. The last third of the book degenerates into a sort of "where are they now" that continues to follow (into the 1970s) the lives of the handful of A-bomb survivors upon whom Hersey originally focused. But the fact of the matter is that all of them went on to lead substantially normal (and not especially remarkable) lives and that none of them has anything very insightful to say about their experiences (which is only what one might naturally expect, though it does lead to curiosity about why Hersey chose to write about them). Once Hersey has described the bomb's immediate effects and the days just afterward, the drama of the book is essentially used up. The bits of political history that he includes (either before or after the bombing) are decidedly sketchy, and Hersey's social analysis of the position of the "explosion-affected persons" in Japan isn't particularly deep. Interesting considering the historical context of the original article that led to the expanded book, but it's a slight effort nonetheless. More than that, it has that unmistakable air of an "assigned book" for high-school or J-high summer reading lists--one that's supposed to carry an important lesson or moral but which is, at base, dull enough to neither offend anyone nor inspire much interest. It's a "read this, it will educate you" book that embodies all the attendant problems of the genre and has a fair amount of difficulty standing the test of time."
"After reading this book, I found myself very confused with many difficult vocabulary words used. I couldnt relate much to the story since it was written during a horrible time period that included bombings, starvation, and people having to be homeless. Though I couldnt relate to the events that occurred throught out the book, I did try to put myself in their position and wondered how it would have been like to try surviving. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in learning hiroshimas past."
"This book had its disturbing moments but it was very exciting.The book described the experience that these six survivors had after the atomic bomb was dropped on the city,Hiroshima. Jhon Hersey included even the smallest but most dramatic details from their stories. Not just researching but to acctually talk to the people who witness this horrible event was brilliant. It is a serious and definitly captivating book.I truly reccomend this book to those who enjoy exciting world histroy book."
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