John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”

A view of Hiroshima, in 1945, from a hill which rises in the eastern part of the city.Photograph by Shunkichi KIKUCHI/MAGNUM

Thursday is the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. To mark it, we’ve made all of “Hiroshima,” John Hersey’s landmark 1946 report on the bombing and its aftermath, available online.

Hersey began working on “Hiroshima” in 1945, when William Shawn, who was then the managing editor of The New Yorker, pointed out that, although the bombing had been widely written about, the victims’ stories still remained untold. After going to Japan and interviewing survivors, Hersey decided to show the bombing through six pairs of eyes. Originally, “Hiroshima” was planned as a four-part series. In the end, however, it was all published in a single issue, in August of 1946. There was nothing unusual about the cover, which showed ordinary people enjoying summertime. Inside, however, there was only “Hiroshima”—no Talk of the Town, no cartoons, no reviews. The piece’s impact was immediate. Parts of it were excerpted in newspapers around the world, and it was read, in its entirety, on the radio. (In 2010, Jon Michaud wrote for this site about the piece’s history and reception.)

Today, “Hiroshima” is undiminished in its intensity. We’ve gathered more pieces on the bombing on our archive page.