Historian Contemplates "Ugly" Reality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
After a lifetime of obsession with nuclear weapons, I didn’t think I
could learn much more about such pivotal events as the U.S. bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place 70 years ago this week. But
historian Alex Wellerstein, who became my colleague at Stevens Institute
of Technology last year, has a knack for knocking the dust off nuclear
history so I can see it afresh.
I’ve cited him in several recent columns (see Further Reading), and now I’m going to cite him again. In June, when I mentioned I was writing about claims that the effects of nuclear weapons have been exaggerated, he steered me to his 2013 blog post “Hiroshima and Nagasaki in color,” a meditation on post-bombing photographs.
Some classic photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such as this one by
the pilot of the plane that dropped "Litte Boy" on Hiroshima, create the
false impression that "the cities were somehow neatly "vaporized,'"
according to historian Alex Wellerstein.
