Empire of Ashes

Over three days in August 1945, a nation once morally opposed to the bombing of civilians killed 120,000 men, women and children; doomed tens of thousands more to agonising death in the months ahead; and annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Empire of Ashes explores the final brutal months of the war in the Pacific, featuring the voices of never-before-heard victims of the atomic bombs. Through interviews with survivors and accounts gleaned from Japanese sources, The New York Times best-selling author James M. Scott combines the attacks’ heart-wrenching details with their causes and consequences, from debates within the Manhattan Project to the fallout that would alter decades of life in Japan. Empire of Ashes illuminates the moral dilemma at the centre of America’s decision to inflict total war upon Japan with startling immediacy. James M. Scott’s Black Snow (