When the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 100,
000 men women and children, a new era in human history opened. Written a mere ye
ar after the disaster, this work offers a heart rending account of six men and w
omen who survived despite all the odds. Forty years later, John Hersey returned
to Hiroshima to discover how the same six people had struggled to cope with cata
strophe and with often crippling disease. His long new chapter, which also consi
ders the dramatic proliferation of nuclear weaponry since the war, provides a de
vastating picture of the long term effects of one very small bomb.
