The Bomb

July 1, 2010
In April 1945, historian and activist Zinn was a young bombardier with the Army Air Force, firebombing European targets from the Plexiglass nose of a B-17, oblivious to the human chaos below. Though his initial reaction to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings was relief that he would not be sent to the Pacific, his conscience would later lead him to return to the French city of Royan to investigate civilian casualties (an experience narrated in The Politics of History,1970) and to the antiwar movement. Occasioned by the 65th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Zinns final work (completed just before his death in January 2010), combines a discussion of the horrors of atomic warfare with a glimpse at the carnage in Royan, which included the deaths of over 1,000 civilians in one of the first uses of napalm. Though this selection is quite brieffewer than 100 pagesand to some extent repetitive of other descriptions of his wartime service, Zinns call to reject disproportionate violence in war remains unalloyed and relevant to todays conflicts.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)