{"product_id":"empire-of-ashes-truman-hirohito-and-the-descent-into-total-war-9781324065487","title":"Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent Into Total War","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt 9:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, an American bomber pierced the skies over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The single bomb it dropped unleashed an atomic hurricane that toppled homes, vaporized birds in flight, and carbonized humans. Three days later, a second bomb flattened the port city of Nagasaki. In the span of a mere 75 hours, the United States--a nation once morally opposed to the bombing of civilians--killed 120,000 men, women, and children, dooming tens of thousands more to agonizing death in the weeks and months ahead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eEmpire of Ashes\u003c\/em\u003e explores the final brutal months of the war in the Pacific, featuring the voices of never-before-heard victims of the atomic bombs. Through interviews with survivors and accounts gleaned from Japanese sources, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e best-selling author James M. Scott combines the attacks' heart-wrenching details with their causes and consequences, from debates within the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, Oakridge, and Hanford to the fallout that would alter decades of life in Japan. Scott also delves into the political maneuvering in Washington and Tokyo between two seemingly unlikely leaders--President Harry S. Truman and Emperor Hirohito--that led to unprecedented violence and, eventually, surrender.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScott grapples with questions that still haunt the detonation of the atomic bomb to this day: What justified the first and only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict? And how does a nation reconcile the pride of liberating millions, with its own unprecedented violence? With startling immediacy, \u003cem\u003eEmpire of Ashes\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates the moral dilemma at the center of America's decision to inflict total war upon Japan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e W. W. Norton \u0026amp; Company\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/04\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781324065487\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 528","brand":"James M. Scott","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52679662076085,"sku":"9781324065487","price":35.69,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/empire-of-ashes-truman-hirohito-and-the-descent-into-total-war-9781324065487","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}