Miracle of Deliverance - Hardcover

Harper, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0283992824 ISBN 13: 9780283992827

Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 1985

Synopsis

The case for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. dw, 1985, 224pp

About this title

From Library Journal

The title, which refers to Winston Churchill's statement upon hearing the news of Hiroshima, suggests Harper's thesis, that Japan's capacity to wage war was still strong in August 1945 and that the atomic bombings therefore saved a vast number of lives, Allied and Japanese. As scholarship, the book is thin and lacks rigor. As general reading, its style is too bland to hold the reader's attention. The book is woefully disor ganized and diffuse. It is more a de scription of the role of the British Em pire in the Pacific War than one would expect given the subtitle. The "Select Bibliography" is anything but. While it includes numerous books of dubious relevance, it omits standard studies (e.g., The Atomic Bomb, edited by Bar ton J. Bernstein, Little, 1976). John H. Boyle, History Dept., California State Univ., Chico
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

The main theme here is the extreme reluctance of the Japanese to surrender in 1945, even after the atom-bomb attacks on two of their cities. Harper maintains that authorities in Tokyo awaited an Allied invasion on the home islands with positive eagerness, and asserts that the slaughter on both sides would have been horrendous. On another level the book is a good, if brief, account of the Japanese war as a whole, with emphasis on the British contribution. In one interesting speculation, the author describes why Operation Zipper, the amphibious landing of Mountbatten's forces, would have been crushed had the war not abruptly ended with the "miracle of deliverance" (the phrase is Churchill's) at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Harper is a correspondent for the London Daily Express. Photos.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0283992824
• ISBN 13: 9780283992827
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224