2015 is the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima, when, at 8.15am, an atomic bomb was dropped over the Japanese city, killing one hundred thousand men, women and children in its white fury. John Hersey's spare, devastating report on the attack was first published in the New Yorker in 1946. Written in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, it chronicles what happened through the eyes of six civilians who survived against the odds. It is a classic piece of journalism, and a defining moment of the nuclear age. 'One of the most powerful writers of modern times' Washington Post
"Many accounts have been published telling so far as security considerations allow how the atom bomb works. But here, for the first time, is not a description of scientific triumphs, of intricate machines, new elements, and mathematical formulas, but an account of what the bomb does seen through the eyes of some of those to whom it did it : of those who endured one of the world's most catastrophic experiences, and lived."(Publishers' Note: Hiroshima by John Hersey)