Five Days in August

[Dave Monroe]

Five Days in August:
How World War II Became a Nuclear War
Michael D. Gordin

Cloth | 2007 | $24.95 / £15.95 | ISBN13:
978-0-691-12818-4 
226 pp. | 6 x 9 

Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended
because the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan forced
it to surrender. Five Days in August boldly presents a
different interpretation: that the military did not
clearly understand the atomic bomb's revolutionary
strategic potential, that the Allies were almost as
stunned by the surrender as the Japanese were by the
attack, and that not only had experts planned and
fully anticipated the need for a third bomb, they were
skeptical about whether the atomic bomb would work at
all. With these ideas, Michael Gordin reorients the
historical and contemporary conversation about the
A-bomb and World War II.

Gordin posits that although the bomb clearly brought
with it a new level of destructive power,
strategically it was regarded by decision-makers
simply as a new conventional weapon, a bigger
firebomb. To lend greater understanding to the
thinking behind its deployment, Gordin takes the
reader to the island of Tinian, near Guam, the home
base for the bombing campaign, and the location from
which the anticipated third atomic bomb was to be
delivered. He also details how Americans generated a
new story about the origins of the bomb after
surrender: that the United States knew in advance that
the bomb would end the war and that its destructive
power was so awesome no one could resist it.

Five Days in August explores these and countless other
legacies of the atomic bomb in a glaring new light.
Daring and iconoclastic, it will result in
far-reaching discussions about the significance of the
A-bomb, about World War II, and about the moral issues
they have spawned.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8237.html

Chapter 1

Endings

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8237.html

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8237.pdf


 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com.  Try it now.