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Fallout
New York Times bestselling author Lesley M.M. Blume reveals how a courageous American Reporter uncovered one of the deadliest cover-ups of the twentieth century-true effects of the atom bomb-potentially saving millions of lives.
- GenresNonfiction
Published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 21, 2024
When I was a child in the '80s, I watched a TV movie called "The Day After." It was a made-for-tv movie on ABC about a nuclear strike on the United States and the days following. By today's standards, the production quality would be considered poor, but at the time, and as a young child, I watched with eyes open in horror. Just as "Jaws" had demonized and planted a terror in many for what was unseen beneath the waves, "The Day After" had seeded a deep sorrow and fear in my young mind. "Could this happen?" I wondered. Little did I know, but it had happened, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and it was the United States that had unleashed the dread.
I picked up this book—"Fallout"—at a local bookstore in the discount section, and I am glad I did. It is a beautiful piece of journalism about a piece of reporting that became one of the most terrifying and bleak days in human history. Focused entirely on "The New Yorker" journalist John Hersey, this work provides texture to the politics and powers at play leading up to August 6th, 1945, the cloak-and-dagger methods employed by "The New Yorker" team in support of John Hersey's deeply personal interviews with Hiroshima survivors (victims), on to the immediate impact of the "Hiroshima" article in "The New Yorker," and it's continued place in the history of the world.
John Hersey's article was published as a book (which I have ordered). This book, "Fallout," has encouraged me to read it—it feels essential.
Leslie Blume's "Fallout" did nothing to soothe my childhood fears; if anything, my old, blunt, ignorant fears have a sharper edge to them—the threat is more acute than I understood as a boy. Unfortunately, the same sorts of human political madness that brought these nightmarish events to bear are at play in 2024. This work did not restore my faith in humanity. Yet, in Blume's portraits of Hersey, I found something powerful: the human ability to look deeply into the oiliest, blackened follies of mankind and still persevere in doing a good thing.
The odds were against John Hersey and "The New Yorker" as they endeavored to produce a truly human view of what happened at Hiroshima. They faced financial ruin, nationalist venom, and all the powers and tactics of the 1945 World War II United States government propaganda engine. Blume's work drives deep into me the great value and vanguard of a genuinely free press as an on-the-ground guerilla force in the effort to diminish the continuing drums of for-profit war hawks and those with ego-driven, tyrannical aspirations wrapped up in the flag of democracy.
I highly recommend this work—do not look away.
I picked up this book—"Fallout"—at a local bookstore in the discount section, and I am glad I did. It is a beautiful piece of journalism about a piece of reporting that became one of the most terrifying and bleak days in human history. Focused entirely on "The New Yorker" journalist John Hersey, this work provides texture to the politics and powers at play leading up to August 6th, 1945, the cloak-and-dagger methods employed by "The New Yorker" team in support of John Hersey's deeply personal interviews with Hiroshima survivors (victims), on to the immediate impact of the "Hiroshima" article in "The New Yorker," and it's continued place in the history of the world.
John Hersey's article was published as a book (which I have ordered). This book, "Fallout," has encouraged me to read it—it feels essential.
Leslie Blume's "Fallout" did nothing to soothe my childhood fears; if anything, my old, blunt, ignorant fears have a sharper edge to them—the threat is more acute than I understood as a boy. Unfortunately, the same sorts of human political madness that brought these nightmarish events to bear are at play in 2024. This work did not restore my faith in humanity. Yet, in Blume's portraits of Hersey, I found something powerful: the human ability to look deeply into the oiliest, blackened follies of mankind and still persevere in doing a good thing.
The odds were against John Hersey and "The New Yorker" as they endeavored to produce a truly human view of what happened at Hiroshima. They faced financial ruin, nationalist venom, and all the powers and tactics of the 1945 World War II United States government propaganda engine. Blume's work drives deep into me the great value and vanguard of a genuinely free press as an on-the-ground guerilla force in the effort to diminish the continuing drums of for-profit war hawks and those with ego-driven, tyrannical aspirations wrapped up in the flag of democracy.
I highly recommend this work—do not look away.
December 13, 2024
Really strong writing - appreciated the detail behind Hersey's approach to documenting this history and the responses from the US government
June 6, 2023
Well paced read which details a new hero for me, John Hersey, and demonstrates the vitality of a free press to combat propaganda and the necessity of impartial journalism and dogged journalists to democratic society. Blume does a great job of wrapping up her book in the epilogue and suggests how relevant Hersey's work still is in todays era of misinformation despite the year his article was written.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews