Shockwave: Countdown To Hiroshima by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Stephen Walker is an amazing look at the development of the atomic bomb and its use to annihilate over 100,000 Japanese people. Through the eyes of American servicemen, Japanese soldiers, civilians, politicians, and scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, you get a complete look at what was going on in Japan and in the United States at that revolutionary time. Comparisons will inevitably be made to John Hershey’s classic Hiroshima, but that shouldn’t (and won’t) take away from the vast work Stephen Walker put into this book. From the introduction:

“My journey has encompassed moments whose meanings I will always struggle to comprehend. I have been shocked, disturbed, thrilled, appalled, entranced, amazed, and deeply moved. In listening to peoples stories, and in the many accounts I also read, I found myself struck again and again by the confluence of events: the revelation of experiencing the same episode from so many different points of view.”

Overall, this is a riveting, multiple-point-of-view look at the atomic bomb from its its first test to its lasting and devastating effects.