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Hiroshima in America Hardcover – July 18, 1995
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- Print length425 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPutnam Adult
- Publication dateJuly 18, 1995
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions6.18 x 1.43 x 9.26 inches
- ISBN-100399140727
- ISBN-13978-0399140723
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product details
- Publisher : Putnam Adult; First Edition (July 18, 1995)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 425 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0399140727
- ISBN-13 : 978-0399140723
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Item Weight : 1.01 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.18 x 1.43 x 9.26 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,087,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #472 in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History (Books)
- #9,475 in World War II History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors

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Greg Mitchell is a film director and the author of dozen non-fiction books. His latest book, published in May 2023 is "Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried," is the companion to his PBS film of the same name. His previous book was the award-winning "The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," published in 2020. Before that was his 2016 bestseller "The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill" (Crown).
His other books include: "Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas" (a New York Times Notable Book); "The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor and the Birth of Media Politics" (winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize); "So Wrong for So Long," on Iraq and the media; and two books with Robert Jay Lifton, "Hiroshima in America" and "Who Owns Death?"
Mitchell won numerous national awards as the editor of Editor & Publisher from 2001 to 2009. He began his magazine career as Senior Editor of the legendary Crawdaddy for most of the 1970s and helped create the first major article about Bruce Springsteen (and later was presented with a gold record for "Born to Run").
He co-produced the recent film, "Following the Ninth," about the cultural and political impact of Beethoven's Ninth symphony around the world in recent years, and has served as adviser to other acclaimed documentaries. His articles have appeared in dozens of national magazines and leading newspapers such as The New York Times and Washington Post.
He lives in the New York City area.
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My only substantive criticism, albeit a big one, is that the book is poorly sourced. Thirty-five pages of notes, yet most quotations and facts that I would have liked to follow up are not found in these notes. Also, though it's in the essence of the book that the authors subject American leaders and the general populace to heavy psychoanalysis, it sometimes seems excessive. A prominent example: the authors' reading of Harry Truman's precarious sense of self is plausible, but unprovable, and it seems excessive. The latter parts of the book are scarcely anything more than national psychoanalysis. Horror poetry of the nation, if you will. I'm not unsympathetic, but this stuff tells the reader nothing. The book should have ended with the report on the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit.
I realize that I have not said anything that other reviewers have not said as well or better. Moreover, by referring to other reviews I have violated Amazon's review guidelines. However, I think the reception of this book is just as interesting as the reception of historical fact that the book describes, and I wanted to put my vote in for it, so to speak. I also strongly recommend the book, part of it anyway, for anyone interested in post-war American history as it describes our culture's difficulty in taking responsibility for history, a difficulty I'm afraid is characteristic of us. The authors do this in as calm and non-perjorative a way as possible. Explosive responses involve, it seems to me, a gross misunderstanding of their intent.
Lifton and Mitchell begin by describing the early reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima, following Truman's announcement on...They argue that all the central aspects of what they call the `official narrative' was contained in Truman's speech. The atomic bomb was discussed in terms of other weapons of the day, it was aimed at a military target, and its use was morally defensible insofar as it was used against an aggressor nation who would have fought to the finish, costing hundreds of thousands of American lives. Any challenges to the official narrative were effectively silenced when Harper's published Henry Stimson's article describing the decision-making process. Stimson's article calmly and dispassionately explained that the atomic bomb would not have been dropped had Japan shown clear signs of willingness to surrender, and most importantly, "the atomic bombings did not merely quicken but caused the end of the war" (108). After establishing the official narrative, the authors go on to describe the historical and psychological factors that led to Truman's decision to use the bomb. Following Roosevelt's death, Truman was thrust into an `atrocity-producing situation,' as he was surrounded by advisors who had already committed themselves to using the bomb (119). Furthermore, like many of those involved in the Manhattan project, Truman was attracted to the sheer power of the atomic bomb. As a man who prided himself on his ability to act decisively, and perhaps feeling the need to establish himself in the wake of Roosevelt's death, Truman's decision is seen as the result of a level of insecurity coupled with countless pressures from all sides.
While Truman stood by his decision throughout his life, those that followed faced an ongoing struggle with the decision, on the part of presidents, journalists and historians, scientists, war veterans, and peace activists. Lifton and Mitchell note that no president has contested Truman's decision while in office, and a number of presidents have expressed their willingness to use the atomic bomb themselves, if need be. The authors conclude this section with a discussion of the Smithsonian's Enola Gay controversy, which pitted scholars and curators against veterans and senators who saw the exhibit's `revisionism' as anti-American. The debate ended in an exhibition that reaffirmed the stability of the official narrative (296). The final section discusses the long-term psychological, moral, and political implications of the decision to drop the atomic bomb. The American public has largely supported the decision while experiencing severe anxiety towards the atomic age. Also, a moral inversion was required to view the catastrophe as a preserver, rather than a destroyer of life; to avoid culpability and invoke virtue in the act (307). Finally, the secrecy and concealment that surrounded the Manhattan Project itself and the long-term effects of radiation, both on Japanese and Americans, set a precedent that authors see echoes of in Vietnam, Watergate, and Iran-Contra (332). Despite the dismal picture previously described, the authors show signs of hope in their conclusion: "Confronting Hiroshima can be a powerful source of renewal. It can enable us to emerge from nuclear entrapment and rediscover our imaginative capacities on behalf of human good" (356).
In the end, what the reader finds in Hiroshima in America is a picture of a nation dealing with an identity crisis. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki disrupts a nationalist narrative grounded on America's moral supremacy, requiring historical distortions, psychological conditioning, and moral inversions to retain a sense of coherence. Lifton and Mitchell suggests that we are experiencing "a `Hiroshima syndrome' that prevents us from taking a truly moral stand on the weaponry, lest our 1945 actions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki become retrospectively unethical and unlawful--in the eyes of the world and, still more troubling, our own eyes as well" (313).







