HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
For CENTRAL SQUARE LIBRARY FEBRUARY 1-29, 2016
(1) Core books
John Hersey
Hiroshima
Masuji Ibuse
Black Rain
Kenzaburo Oe
Hiroshima Notes
Joseph Gerson
With Hiroshima Eyes: Atomic War, Nuclear Extortion, and Moral Imagination
Hiroshima in History and Memory [a collection of essays whose subjects range from decision to drop
bomb up to the Smithsonian Exhibit]
Edited by Michael Hogan
Martin J. Sherwin
A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance
(winner of the national book award for history some years ago)
Robert Jay Lifton
Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima
An early (1967) and seminal work on the impacts of the A-bombs on Hibakusha, including their
psychologies
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan
This book (2005), drawn from Japanese and Soviet archives (as well as U.S.) revolutionized scholarship
with its detail about the Soviet-Japanese dimension of the race to end the war and gain geostrategic
advantage.
Gar Alperovitz
The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: And the Architecture of an American Myth
This is the seminal work that debunked the rationale that the A-bombings were necessary to end the war.
(2) Children's (Picture Books and Young Readers)
1980
Toshi Maruki
Hiroshima No Pika [The Flash of Hiroshima]
A wonderful reading of Hiroshima No Piko -- showing all the illustrations – can be found on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7pUcvaAa3Q
This children’s book is an extremely important resource, because it is associated with the Hiroshima Panels
by Maruki Iri and Toshi.
http://www.aya.or.jp/~marukimsn/gen/gen11e.html
1990
Junko Morimoto
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My Hiroshima
http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-Viking-Kestrel-picture-books/dp/0670831816
1995
Tatsuharu Kodama
Noriyuki Ando, ill.
Shin's Tricycle
http://www.amazon.com/Shins-Tricycle-Tatsuharu-Kodama/dp/0802783759
Based on the story of the child whose tricycle is on exhibit at the Hiroshima Museum.
Sadako and the Thousand Cranes
http://www.amazon.com/Sadako-Thousand-Cranes-Puffin-Classics/dp/0142401137
(3) Graphic Novels
(Teen and Adult)
Keiji Nakazawa
Barefoot Gen (multiple volumes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Gen
Hillary Chute
Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form
(4)
Visual
Unforgettable Fire
https://archive.org/details/UnforgettableFireDrawingsByAtomicBombSurvivors1967
Provides the opportunity to view page after page of drawings made by survivors that recall the hell on
Earth of the atomic bombing and its aftermath.
(5) Film
These three important films may not yet have been released for library acquisition.
Black Rain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rain_%281989_Japanese_film%29
Children of Hiroshima
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Hiroshima
Lucky Dragon No. 5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Dragon_No._5_%28film%29
In addition, the anime film Grave of the Fireflies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies) is
a vital resource. It deals specifically with the firebombing that preceded the atomic bombing, but is
extremely useful.
A 3-minute clip about the Hiroshima bombing from the film locked away in Pentagon vaults until 1970 can
be found at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO98p2w05LE
The 17 minute film can be rented from American Friends Service Committee office, and it can be seen on
line at:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277013/
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(6) Music
The opera by John Adams, Doctor Atomic, explores issues surrounding the development of the atomic
bomb and the final steps leading up to its use in August, 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Atomic
(7) Recent Books on Nuclear Weapons Dangers Today
Eric Schlosser 2014
Command and Control
Elaine Scarry 2014
Thermonculear Monarchy: Choosing between Democracy and Doom
Vincent Intondi 2015
African Americans Against the Bomb
(8)
Bibliographic Resources on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Two books provide excellent gateways to many other writers and sources:
Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy
http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshimas-Writings-history-Smithsonian-controversy/dp/0963058738
Anthologizes writing by about 50 authors across the decades on issues related to the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Takashi Murakami
Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Boy-Japans-Exploding-Subculture/dp/0300102852
Describes diverse elements of contemporary Japanese culture that have grown (directly and indirectly) out
of the atomic bombing experience.
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OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Hiroshima list
http://home.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/bngkkn/database/Englishdata/BibliographyonAbombLit.html
This focuses on about a dozen Japanese authors. Many produced multiple works.
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U Arkansas bibliography (ATTACHED)
https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/arizona_quarterly_a_journal_of_american_literature_cultur
e_and_theory/summary/v046/46.3.bennett.html
(downloadable:
http://mwbdvjh.muse.jhu.edu/journals/arizona_quarterly_a_journal_of_american_literatu
re_culture_and_theory/v046/46.3.bennett.pdf
New Miseries in Old Attire: Nuclear Adolescent Novels Published in the United States in
the 1980s
http://www.academia.edu/4561487/New_Miseries_in_Old_Attire_Nuclear_Adolescent_
Novels_Published_in_the_United_States_in_the_1980s
Nuclear Holocaust in Contemporary Children's Fiction: A Surprising Amount of
Agreement
http://phdtree.org/pdf/32743965-nuclear-holocaust-in-contemporary-childrens-fiction-asurprising-amount-of-agreement/
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