Every year, early in August, news organizations around the world publish articles about the instant mass death inflicted at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, restating the arguments for and against the United States’ use of atomic bombs just before the end of World War II. This anniversary-of-horror coverage is always poignant. What sort of monster, after all, could remain unmoved when confronted with the instantaneous incineration of tens of thousands of unsuspecting civilians and the horrendous types of suffering that survivors endured? Among the worthiest of the atomic retrospectives published this week is Ariel Dorfman’s brilliant little essay on the meaning of the Ginkgo trees that survived the Hiroshima bombing. (I will not summarize the piece here, for fear of strangling the lyricism you will experience while reading it.) Also more than worthwhile is the Guardian’s exploration of the mix of rehabilitation and memorialization that characterizes today’s Hiroshima, something the Guardian’s headline writers aptly term the city’s psychogeography. Two very different pieces with very different approaches provide quality factual accounts of the Hiroshima bombing: “The Story of 25 Hiroshima Bombing Survivors You Should Know” offers the latest proof that Teen Vogue is rapidly becoming the magazine for stylish young women who think. And the New York Times’ The Daily 360 feature uses various modeling and mapping technologies to help viewers imagine, in the round, from above, the attack on Hiroshima.
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 6th Aug 2017 read more »
Was it justified or needless? A look at the debate surrounding the atomic bombing of Japan.
Washington Post 5th Aug 2017 read more »
