Prompt & Utter Destruction is a book by J. Samuel Walker that details the events leading up the decision for the United States to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Narrative-like descriptions of cabinet meetings, personal diary entries of important players, and first-hand accounts from soldiers in the war are all artfully pieced together to recreate the story of Truman’s decision, overturning many common misconceptions about the era and presenting new information. While Walker presents his own conclusions using the data he has compiled, he is careful to leave room for the reader to make his/her own inferences with the same data, and admits there are plenty of gaps in his information that could potentially
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It begins with a (mostly fictitious) meeting between the president and his advisors to draw the reader into the drama of the war, and then returns to the beginning of the war to give context to how events have progressed so that Truman has been put in the spotlight to make the decision. The seven chapters that the book is divided into cover the length of time from the start of Hitler’s invasion until the aftermath of the bomb on Hiroshima, and focus mainly on American-Japanese relations throughout the war. Europe isn’t focused on nearly at all, because the decision to drop the bomb was barely influenced by European relations.
Walker states his thesis (very direct and easily picked out, even by a reader who isn’t necessarily looking for it) in the beginning, after his first illustration of Truman. “The considerations that led to Hiroshima were much more complex and much less clear-cut than the conventional view suggests” (Walker 6). However, the thesis is also inserted into the narrative with great precision of skill, and doesn’t pull the reader out of the proceedings of events, instead simply stating the purpose of the first cabinet meeting illustration and heralding what Walker’s ultimate purpose is for telling this
It begins with a (mostly fictitious) meeting between the president and his advisors to draw the reader into the drama of the war, and then returns to the beginning of the war to give context to how events have progressed so that Truman has been put in the spotlight to make the decision. The seven chapters that the book is divided into cover the length of time from the start of Hitler’s invasion until the aftermath of the bomb on Hiroshima, and focus mainly on American-Japanese relations throughout the war. Europe isn’t focused on nearly at all, because the decision to drop the bomb was barely influenced by European relations.
Walker states his thesis (very direct and easily picked out, even by a reader who isn’t necessarily looking for it) in the beginning, after his first illustration of Truman. “The considerations that led to Hiroshima were much more complex and much less clear-cut than the conventional view suggests” (Walker 6). However, the thesis is also inserted into the narrative with great precision of skill, and doesn’t pull the reader out of the proceedings of events, instead simply stating the purpose of the first cabinet meeting illustration and heralding what Walker’s ultimate purpose is for telling this