Charles Pellegrino - The Last Train from Hiroshima [96] Unabridg

Charles Pellegrino - The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back

Read by Arthur Morey, 96 kbps, Unabridged


http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-last-train-from-hiroshima-charles-pellegrino/1017612966

Overview
Drawing on the voices of atomic-bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology, Charles Pellegrino describes the events and aftermath of two days in August when nuclear devices detonated over Japan changed life on Earth forever

Last Train from Hiroshima offers readers a stunning ΓÇ£you are thereΓÇ¥ time capsule, gracefully wrapped in elegant prose. Charles PellegrinoΓÇÖs scientific authority and close relationship with the A-bombΓÇÖs survivors make his account the most gripping and authoritative ever written.

At the narrativeΓÇÖs core are eyewitness accounts of those who experienced the atomic explosions firsthandΓÇöthe Japanese civilians on the ground and the American flyers in the air. Thirty people are known to have fled Hiroshima for NagasakiΓÇöwhere they arrived just in time to survive the second bomb. One of them, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, is the only person who experienced the full effects of the cataclysm at ground zero both times. The second time, the blast effects were diverted around the stairwell in which Yamaguchi had been standing, placing him and a few others in a shock coccoon that offered protection, while the entire building disappeared around them.

Pellegrino weaves spellbinding stories together within an illustrated narrative that challenges the ΓÇ£official report,ΓÇ¥ showing exactly what happened in Hiroshima and NagasakiΓÇöand why.

Publishers Weekly
Using a combination of firsthand accounts of Japanese A-bomb survivors, American aviators, and classified documents of government officials, Pellegrino (The Jesus Family Tomb) reconstructs two horrifying days and their aftermath when the age of atomic warfare was introduced over Japan. He is fascinated with the ΓÇ£strange alchemyΓÇ¥ of these cruel weapons (ΓÇ£One ten-millionth of a second later, a sphere of gamma rays escap[ed] the core at light speedΓÇ¥) as the bomb fell on Mrs. Aoyam tending her garden at Point Zero, literally before she could see it coming. Pellegrino is equally interested in the grotesque effects the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki inflicted on the human body with its gamma rays, neutron spray and poisonous black rain. The stories of the few Japanese survivors includes a group of 30 civilians fleeing from Hiroshima to Nagasaki where they arrived to endure the second bomb, are heart-stopping. Pellegrino dissects the complex political and military strategies that went into the atomic detonations and the untold suffering heaped on countless Japanese civilians, weaving all of the book's many elements into a wise, informed protest against any further use of these terrible weapons.