Atomic Bomb and Japan: Books and eBooks about the Atomic Bomb

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.

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.

Exhaustively researched and vividly told, The Fall of Japan masterfully chronicles the dramatic events that brought an end to the Pacific War and forced a once-mighty military nation to surrender unconditionally. From the ferocious fighting on Okinawa to the all-but-impossible mission to drop the 2nd atom bomb, and from Franklin D. Roosevelt's White House to the Tokyo bunker where tearful Japanese leaders first told the emperor the truth, William Craig captures the pivotal events of the war with spellbinding authority. The Fall of Japan brings to life both celebrated and lesser-known historical figures, including Admiral Takijiro Onishi, the brash commander who drew up the Yamamoto plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor and inspired the death cult of kamikaze pilots.

A study of nuclear warfare's key role in triggering the post-World War II confrontation between the US and the USSR .

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were certainly evil, but how evil? Evil in which way? Conventionally, their evil has been explained away by repeating that the atomic bombings 'ended the war to save lives.' If true, the evil was not truly evil. In this book, the author challenges this all too comforting explanation.

Few aspects of American military history have been as vigorously debated as Harry Truman's decision to use atomic bombs against Japan. In this carefully crafted volume, Michael Kort describes the wartime circumstances and thinking that form the context for the decision to use these weapons, surveys the major debates related to that decision, and provides a comprehensive collection of key primary source documents that illuminate the behavior of the United States and Japan during the closing days of World War II.

Harry Wray and Seishiro Sugihara transcend the one-sided Tokyo Trial view of the war in an effort to conduct a balanced exchange on historical perception.

This book explores the American use of atomic bombs and the role these weapons played in the defeat of the Japanese Empire in World War II. It focuses on President Harry S. Truman's decision-making regarding this most controversial of all his decisions. The book relies on notable archival research and the best and most recent scholarship on the subject to fashion an incisive overview that is fair and forceful in its judgments.

Check Chapter 5 for the Bombing of Japan.
The Blitz Companion offers a unique overview of a century of aerial warfare, its impact on cities and the people who lived in them. It tells the story of aerial warfare from the earliest bombing raids and in World War 1 through to the London Blitz and Allied bombings of Europe and Japan.

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.