Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses
Sep. 2024 · Embers Buch 1 · Penguin
E-Book
560
Seiten
family_home
Zulässig
info
reportBewertungen und Rezensionen werden nicht geprüft Weitere Informationen
Über dieses E-Book
One of Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction From 2024
The first volume in a two-book series about each of the atomic bomb drops that ended the Pacific War based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors to tell a story of devastation and resilience
In this vividly rendered historical narrative, M. G. Sheftall layers the stories of hibakusha—the Japanese word for atomic bomb survivors—in harrowing detail, to give a minute-by-minute report of August 6, 1945, in the leadup and aftermath of the world-changing bombing mission of Paul Tibbets, Enola Gay, and Little Boy. These survivors and witnesses, who now have an average age over ninety years old, are quite literally the last people who can still provide us with reliable and detailed testimony about life in their cities before the bombings, tell us what they experienced on the day those cities were obliterated, and give us some appreciation of what it has entailed to live with those memories and scars during the subsequent seventy-plus years.
Sheftall has spent years personally interviewing survivors who lived well into the twenty-first century, allowing him to construct portraits of what Hiroshima was like before the bomb, and how catastrophically its citizens’ lives changed in the seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years afterward. He stands out among historians due to his fluency in spoken and written Japanese, and his longtime immersion in Japanese society that has allowed him, a white American, the unheard-of access to these atomic bomb survivors in the waning years of their lives. Their trust in him is evident in the personal and traumatic depths they open up for him as he records their stories.
Hiroshima should be required reading for the modern age. The personal accounts it contains will serve as cautionary tales about the horror and insanity of nuclear warfare, reminding them—it is hoped—that the world still lives with this danger at our doorstep.
The first volume in a two-book series about each of the atomic bomb drops that ended the Pacific War based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors to tell a story of devastation and resilience
In this vividly rendered historical narrative, M. G. Sheftall layers the stories of hibakusha—the Japanese word for atomic bomb survivors—in harrowing detail, to give a minute-by-minute report of August 6, 1945, in the leadup and aftermath of the world-changing bombing mission of Paul Tibbets, Enola Gay, and Little Boy. These survivors and witnesses, who now have an average age over ninety years old, are quite literally the last people who can still provide us with reliable and detailed testimony about life in their cities before the bombings, tell us what they experienced on the day those cities were obliterated, and give us some appreciation of what it has entailed to live with those memories and scars during the subsequent seventy-plus years.
Sheftall has spent years personally interviewing survivors who lived well into the twenty-first century, allowing him to construct portraits of what Hiroshima was like before the bomb, and how catastrophically its citizens’ lives changed in the seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years afterward. He stands out among historians due to his fluency in spoken and written Japanese, and his longtime immersion in Japanese society that has allowed him, a white American, the unheard-of access to these atomic bomb survivors in the waning years of their lives. Their trust in him is evident in the personal and traumatic depths they open up for him as he records their stories.
Hiroshima should be required reading for the modern age. The personal accounts it contains will serve as cautionary tales about the horror and insanity of nuclear warfare, reminding them—it is hoped—that the world still lives with this danger at our doorstep.
Autoren-Profil
M. G. Sheftall has lived in Japan since 1987. He has a PhD in international relations/modern Japanese history awarded by Waseda University in Tokyo. Since 2001, he has been a professor of modern Japanese cultural history and communication at the Faculty of Informatics of Shizuoka University, which is an institution in the Japanese national university system. Sheftall is married, with two adult sons, and makes his home in Hamamatsu, Japan.
Dieses E-Book bewerten
Deine Meinung ist gefragt!
Informationen zum Lesen
Smartphones und Tablets
Nachdem du die Google Play Bücher App für Android und iPad/iPhone installiert hast, wird diese automatisch mit deinem Konto synchronisiert, sodass du auch unterwegs online und offline lesen kannst.
Laptops und Computer
Im Webbrowser auf deinem Computer kannst du dir Hörbucher anhören, die du bei Google Play gekauft hast.
E-Reader und andere Geräte
Wenn du Bücher auf E-Ink-Geräten lesen möchtest, beispielsweise auf einem Kobo eReader, lade eine Datei herunter und übertrage sie auf dein Gerät. Eine ausführliche Anleitung zum Übertragen der Dateien auf unterstützte E-Reader findest du in der Hilfe.
