Hiroshima Forever: The Ecology of Mourning

Fifty-one years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima Forever explores why and how sharing in the sorrows of others is a key to our own survival, the ecologically sound way of discovering a more humane future, and the only way to avoid the nightmare of history’s repetition. In the twelve eloquent chapters of this extended essay, Michael Perlman explores key images and texts associated with the first atomic bombings, most notably John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Perlman shows that without the ability to allow a place within ourselves for those outside our own group–other human beings and, finally, all that comprises our planet’s ecology–Hiroshima and Nagasaki will repeat themselves many times over. Hiroshima Forever: The Ecology of Mourning speaks not just to ecologists, peace-activists and explorers of psyche and spirit, but to anyone who can’t get out of their minds the hope that we might still be able to work together for a better future.