| Rating:
**** 4 stars
Jason Hook,
Hiroshima.
Series Days That Shook the World, Hodder
Wayland, 2000.
(This title is reviewed together with D-Day, by
Sean Sheehan, Hodder Wayland)
The end of the end of WWII (and the beginning of
the Cold War) was signalled by the obscenity of Hiroshima.
Hook provides a chillingly impartial account of the
political and military background to the dropping
of Little Boy (only 3 out of the 55 hospitals remained
in Hiroshima) and its repercussions (which are still
resonantly with us) through Bikini Atoll, Aldermaston
marches, Cuban missile crisis and Doctor Strangelove.
This is a pair of worthy companions to a serious
look at the Second World War and its legacies, and
we all have to live with them.
Ted Percy
Guide to the rating system:
***** 5 stars, unmissable
**** 4 stars, very good
*** 3 stars, good
** 2 stars, fair
* 1 star, poor
|
