‘Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War’: Gripping look into bombing’s fallout

War is complicated and cruel, and author Susan Southard makes no bones about it in her remarkable book, 'Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War.”

Southard spent 10 years researching and conducting interviews with hundreds of survivors (or hibakusha, as they are called in Japan), including five civilians who were teenagers at the time of the Aug. 9, 1945, bombing.

While other books about nuclear fallout explore the days leading up to and immediately following the bombing, Southard goes much, much deeper, detailing how one fateful day impacted these five survivors not just in the days and weeks that followed, but for the next 70 years.

Yes, 70 years.

Southard presents the policies, strategies and details of the era dovetailed within the stories of these five average Nagasaki civilians. In taking the long view, Southard demonstrates how one day has a lifetime of repercussions, from gruesome long-term health complications to tragic emotional tolls.

Her book is not a dense 300-page history, but a powerful living text with the emotional grip of a memoir.

Southard does not use her work as a platform for black-and-white support or criticism of nuclear weapons. She states time and again the complications of war, the gruesome atrocities suffered on all sides, and the need, then, for dialogue:

'If we choose to take and defend actions that cause great harm to civilians during war, I believe we must also be willing to look at the impact of those actions.”

We live in a nation with the largest cache of nuclear weapons, which means at some point we will be faced with some difficult decisions about their use. To be informed, responsible citizens, 'Nagasaki” should be required reading for all of us.