Member-only story
Around the World in Books / Japan
True Stories of Six Who Survived The Atom Bomb Assault On Japan
Writers and editors call ‘Hiroshima’ the best book of American journalism of the 20th century. Why does it tower over others?
This is the 12th post in the “Around the World in Books” series that is reviewing 30 books from 30 countries in the first 30 days of March. Tomorrow: Kenya
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein may have become the most famous print journalists of their day for their reporting on the Watergate scandals. But did their work really outshine all others’?
Not according to a survey of a 36-member panel of distinguished reporters, journalism professors, and others, led by New York University. Those judges rightly chose John Hersey’s Hiroshima as the best work of American journalism of the 20th century (with Rachel Carson in the №2 spot and Woodward and Bernstein at №3).
“ ‘Hiroshima’ can be said to be the founding document of the anti-nuclear movement,” the project director of the NYU panel said. Its impact was vast and immediate.
As the curators of the National World War II Museum have noted, Hersey’s book “forever changed how Americans viewed the atomic attack…
