hiroshima the worlds bomb apr 2008

[...]... that led to the bombing itself, the impact of the bomb on Hiroshima and the endgame of the Pacific War, the largely unavailing attempts to control the spread of nuclear weapons in the war’s aftermath and the evolution of the nuclear arms race, the effects of the bombing and the bomb on society and culture, and the state of things nuclear in the early twenty-first-century world Throughout, the account... But, of course, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was not so simple, neither in 1945 nor today That the dispute about its use remains bitter is evidence of that The questions linger Were the Japanese on their last legs by the summer of 1945? Did their leaders know it? Did the Americans think the Japanese leaders knew it? Was the bomb necessary to end the war? Were both bombs needed? In their absence,... result, the atomic bomb was in a meaningful sense everyone’s offspring and certainly thereafter everyone’s problem Had the Japanese, or the Germans, the British, or the Soviets made the bomb first, they surely would have used it against their enemies; that they did not get the bomb first had nothing to do with any moral qualms about producing it No one’s hands were entirely clean Otto Frisch, the Austrian... Winston Churchill came together at Potsdam 12 Ruined Hiroshima: The atomic bomb codenamed “Little Boy” struck near the heart of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 13 The bombed, 1: The living in Hiroshima sought shelter where they could find it 14 The bombed, 2: A family at a makeshift hospital ward 15 Standing at attention: A boy stands erect, having done his duty by bringing his dead brother to a cremation ground... and neither did they alone actually build it The science that enabled the bomb was conducted internationally; Hungarian, British, and German scientists and mathematicians, for example, were among the bomb s most important theoretical pioneers Even after many of the world’s leading mathematicians, physicists, and chemists had gathered in the United States and had combined their talents in the top-secret... of the scientific problems the Second World War had presented And there seemed to the crew of the plane that bright morning a moral simplicity to what they had done The criminality of the Japanese—all Japanese, without distinction—was to them unquestionable 2 hiroshima The Japanese had treacherously attacked Pearl Harbor They had murdered civilians in China and Southeast Asia, tortured and starved their... explore, in layperson’s terms, the physics of the bomb, the international crises that led to the Second World War, the creation of a community of scientists, throughout the world and especially in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, dedicated to developing a weapon that could undo the evil that resided in Nazi Germany, the harnessing of their efforts by the wartime state, the political and strategic... fought remorselessly for their island conquests in the South Pacific If dropping an atomic bomb above the center of Hiroshima would end the war sooner, the men of the Enola Gay would simply do it, without hesitation and untroubled by pangs of conscience Over sixty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki, bombed three days later), we remember the event with much of the same stark simplicity... contribution to the bomb (According to some accounts, Truman caustically offered Oppenheimer a handkerchief to wipe the blood off.) ‘As far as I can see,’ said Mahatma Gandhi, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feelings which have sustained mankind for ages’—meaning that everyone, not just the immediate perpetrators of the bomb, had been morally compromised.3 This book tells the story of the Hiroshima bomb. .. regarded at the time The atomic bomb, many claim, was an appropriate punishment for a people who had visited war and misery on the world, a punishment commensurate with Japanese malfeasance in Asia and throughout the Pacific The Japanese deserved the bomb Moreover, the bomb was essential to end the war The Japanese war cabinet, or influential members of it, had vowed to sacrifice multitudes of their fellow . and Building the Bomb 88 5. The United States II: Using the Bomb 127 6. Japan: The Atomic Bombs and War’s End 177 7. The Soviet Union: The Bomb and the Cold War 228 8. The World’s Bomb 270 Epilogue:. just the immediate perpetrators of the bomb, had been morally compromised. 3 This book tells the story of the Hiroshima bomb. It will explore, in layperson’s terms, the physics of the bomb, the. undo the evil that resided in Nazi Germany, the harnessing of their efforts by the wartime state, the political and strategic decisions that led to the bombing itself, the impact of the bomb on Hiroshima