City Books Presents: Iain MacGregor – The Hiroshima Men

About

Iain MacGregor is Head of Non-Fiction at Head of Zeus and is an award winning historian.

A vivid account of one of history's most significant events: the approval, construction, and fateful decision to drop the atomic bomb – based on new research and interviews, timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack.

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945, the Japanese port city of Hiroshima was struck by the world's first atomic bomb. Built in the US by the top-secret Manhattan Project and delivered by a B-29 Superfortress, a revolutionary long-range bomber, the weapon destroyed large swaths of the city, instantly killing tens of thousands.

The world would never be the same again. The Hiroshima Men's unique narrative recounts the decade-long journey towards this first atomic attack. It charts the race for nuclear technology before, and during the Second World War, as the allies fought the axis powers in Europe, North Africa, China, and across the vastness of the Pacific, and is seen through the experiences of several key characters: General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer; pioneering Army Air Force bomber pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets II; the mayor of Hiroshima, Senkichi Awaya, who would die alongside over eighty-thousand of his fellow citizens; and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Hersey, who travelled to post-war Japan to expose the devastation the bomb had inflicted upon the city, and described in unflinching detail the dangers posed by its deadly after-effect, radiation poisoning.

‘Iain MacGregor’s Hiroshima Men is a meticulously researched and profoundly thought-provoking account of one of history’s most consequential events.. More than just a work of history, this is also a sobering meditation on war, science and morality. Superb.’ -James Holland

'I can think of no more important book for our time. Written with moral clarity, tremendous verve, and the ability of a truly great historian to render the immensity of a moment through the smaller voices as well as being faithful to the facts. I recommend this magisterial, haunting book to all generations.' – Fergal Keane