This book is about five Japanese citizens, and one German priest's recountments of the destruction of Hiroshima, on August 6th, 1945. The author, John Hersey, traveled to Hiroshima shortly after the United States used the Atomic bomb. While there, he interviewed several survivors of the tragic event, and accurately recounts their stories throughout the book.

This book is short, a scant 115 pages, but within those pages it tells so much. Hearing of the attack through these peoples words is staggering, disgusting, painful, heart wrenching, but most of all real.

It's hard to describe the impact of this book in words. To borrow a quote from the New York Times-"Nothing that can be said about this book can equal what the book has to say. It speaks for itself, and, in an unforgettable way, for humanity.

the small things long forgotten, but remembered in this timeless book. Such as the Japanese citizen’s, living in Hiroshima, first impression of the attack, was to assume the Americans had flown over their cities dumping millions of gallons of gasoline, and had simply lit a match. It's small things like this, which show the thought process of some of these people as the dealt with the tragedy surrounding them.

There's nothing about this book I didn't like. It's reality, and it's truth. To scorn that truth and reality is to deny it.

think. This book had a strange impact on me, and got me thinking about something I don't usually think about. This book is the only roadmap anyone really has as to what would happen to him or her, as a citizen, in a nuclear attack, unfortunately this was written 57 years ago. As an aging roadmap, we can only hope humankind will never get lost.

nervous, curious. It made me feel a lot of things, but the most important, enlightened. This book has a much deeper meaning than the simple words on the pages

we all live in an age that the citizens of Hiroshima ushered in with their blood. It's important to never forget this part of history.

exert from Hiroshima



Miss Toshio Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, was chatting with another girl.

Dr. Masakazu Fujii, the proprietor of a one-doctor hospital, had just settled comfortable on his porch.

Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura near a widow, looked out at a strange scene from her window.

Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest, was reading a Jesuit magazine.

Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young surgeon, walked along a hospital corridor with a blood specimen for a Wassermann test.

Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, was about to unload a cart of clothes and goods at a home in the suburbs.

A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, these six were among the survivors. They still wonder why they lived when so many others died...

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Created May 28, 2006 at 8:25am • Submit your own review...