Atomic Bomb Debate: Books and eBooks about the Atomic Bomb

In 1945 Imperial Japan was making every effort to seek an honorable surrender while the United States was trying to decide whether or not to drop the atomic bomb. While the main focus remains on the political aspects of the decision President Harry Truman was about to make, the author also focuses on the logistics and military situation of the United States and Japan during the last year of the war. The Potsdam Conference plays a key role in the unfolding drama that led to Japan's surrender.

The US decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 remains one of the most controversial events of the twentieth century. As this fascinating new history shows, the bomb was in many ways the world's offspring, in both a technological and a moral sense. And it was the world that would have to face its consequences in the years ahead.

Scientists relate the discovery of nuclear fission in the 1930s and the harnessing of this power to build weapons of mass destruction. A U.S. president and top military officials discuss the ultimate decision to use these new atomic bombs to end a long and costly world war.

This book uses historical documents to discuss both sides of the atomic bomb debate.

Five Days in August boldly presents a view that the military did not clearly understand the atomic bomb's revolutionary strategic potential, that the Allies were almost as stunned by the surrender as the Japanese were by the attack, and that not only had experts planned and fully anticipated the need for a third bomb, they were skeptical about whether the atomic bomb would work at all.

Drawing on the voices of atomic bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology, Charles Pellegrino describes the events and the aftermath of two days in August when nuclear devices, detonated over Japan, changed life on Earth forever.