| Samenvatting: | On August 6, 1945, the earth's history underwent a sudden, swift and unprecedented change. The world's first nuclear bomb was dropped on a city of human beings in Hiroshima, Japan. This event immediately changed the status of the world as we knew it. This weapon instantly overshadowed any other destructive device ever created by human cunningness; all other armament was rendered obsolete. Humans finally invented the ultimate weapon. The all-encompassing magnitude of the destructive force of this apparatus had potential death-dealing effect for all humanity as it still does today - forty years later. And with the creation of this truly ultimate weapon, an awesome responsibility was born. We humans were all responsible to each other - each one to each one - in an intensity and immutability never previous existent. This book unravels the essentially paradoxical nature of the atom bombing; of committing a vicious evil which was an ironic 'good' for many Americans in the 1940's. It is fascinating to see here the complexity of human psychological functioning and to observe how each crewman (of the Enola Gray) interviewed copes and deals with the enormity of the vastly violent act of which he was personally a part of. |
| Trefwoorden: | Hiroshima, Enola Gay, Japan, atoombom, psychologie, geweten, schuldgevoel, overlevers, verantwoordelijkheid, geestelijke gezondheid, cognitieve dissonantie, rationalisatie, Vietnamoorlog, veteranen, selectieve herinnering, woede, emoties, wroeging, spijt, ambivalentie, depressie, B 29, Hibakusha, |