Review: "Hiroshima Men"

By Nilima Sinha, Library Committee

Iain MacGregor’s The Hiroshima Men, The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb and the Fateful Decision to Use It was published in 2025. MacGregor relates the powerful story of the development of the bomb, the decision to use the bomb and the after-effects of the bomb through the experiences of four men intimately connected with Hiroshima.
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• General Leslie Groves chose the Los Alamos site and shepherded the construction of the secret lab. He decided to hire J. Robert Oppenheimer to oversee the scientific administration despite opposition from many. Groves was also part of the committee that decided the where, when and how of locations to drop the bomb.

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• ​​Senkichi Awaya was the mayor of Hiroshima, a forgotten man who was killed by the initial blast. He was a well-loved mayor who worried about the likelihood of an attack on his city. He was grieved by the forced displacement of his citizens due to the razing of their homes by the Tokyo government to create firebreaks. Ironically, the citizens who were displaced were the ones who survived.
• Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr. piloted the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  He rose to the rank of Brigadier General and later lived in Columbus, Ohio.
• John Hersey was a journalist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. A year after the bombing of Hiroshima, Hersey wrote a powerful 30,000-word essay for The New Yorker magazine which challenged the U.S. government’s report. The essay focused on the human toll through the experiences of six survivors and for the first time the US public learned about the horrific human consequences of the atom bomb. 

Aside from a comprehensive story of the atom bomb, MacGregor covers a lot of detail about the war in the Pacific including the development of the B-29 and the ghastly firebombing of Tokyo.

One thing new to me was the prejudice in Japan against the survivors.  They were known as Hibakusha (bomb-affected people) and were ostracized.  They lacked governmental support as they fell victim to radiation-related illnesses. Those who were healthy were discriminated against in higher education and the workplace. They were refused housing and were denied access to public places. They had difficulty in finding marriage partners.  The discrimination still lingers.

This non-fiction book about the brutality and tragedy of war is a result of meticulous research. The ending was unputdownable.

​This book is not in the Coffman collection but is available in the Ramsey and Hennepin County Libraries