Fallout, Lesley M.M. Blume
Fallout, Lesley M.M. Blume
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Fallout
The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

Author: Lesley M.M. Blume

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Unabridged: 6 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/04/2020


Synopsis

ONE of THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 NOTABLE BOOKS of the YEAR * A VANITY FAIR and TOWN & COUNTRY BEST BOOK of the YEAR *

New York Times bestselling author Lesley M.M. Blume reveals how one courageous American reporter uncovered one of the deadliest cover-ups of the 20th century—the true effects of the atom bomb—potentially saving millions of lives.

Just days after the United States decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the US government and military had begun a secret propaganda and information suppression campaign to hide the devastating effects of these then-experimental weapons. For nearly a year the cover-up worked—until New Yorker journalist John Hersey got into Hiroshima and managed to report the truth to the world. When the magazine published “Hiroshima” in August 1946, it became an instant global sensation, and inspired pervasive horror about the hellish new threat that America had unleashed.

Since 1945, no nuclear weapons have ever been deployed in war partly because Hersey alerted the world to their true, devastating impact. This knowledge has remained among the greatest deterrents to using them since the end of World War II.

Released on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Fallout is an engrossing detective story, as well as an important piece of hidden history that shows how one heroic scoop saved—and can still save—the world.

About Lesley M.M. Blume

Lesley M.M. Blume is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and biographer. Her work has appeared in Vanity FairThe New York TimesThe Wall Street Journal, and The Paris Review, among many other publications. Her last nonfiction book, Everybody Behaves Badly, was a New York Times bestseller.  


Reviews

Goodreads review by David

In the Trump era, Americans have become inured to constant lying, misdirection and coverups. But this is not new or unique. Lesley Blume has profiled America’s most egregious coverup and the lies surrounding it in Fallout. It’s the story of the making of the earthshaking magazine article Hiroshima,......more

First off, if you haven't read John Hersey's original longform article Hiroshima, please do read it. It is still a shocking but essential piece of journalism on the bombing of Hiroshima. "After millennia of contriving increasingly horrible and efficient killing machines, humans had finally invented t......more

Goodreads review by Steven

On August 6, 2020, the world commemorated the dropping of a “10,000 pound uranium bomb” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The weapon referred to as the atomic bomb unleashed the nuclear age and brought about the threat to human civilization. According to journalist John Hersey the use of the bomb h......more

Goodreads review by Amber

This is a good companion piece to Hiroshima, but I would have preferred something more concise. This could have been condensed to 15 pages without losing a whole lot. I honestly wish Lesley M.M. Blume could just write an introduction to Hiroshima and they could be published together.......more