"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)