Today marks 80 years since the first use of a nuclear weapon against people during wartime.

By happenstance, I just finished reading this small book, Hiroshima by John Hersey. Written a year after the explosion, it follows the story of six survivors of the blast, recounting their experiences on the day and their lives throughout the next year, as well as a bonus chapter rounding out their stories 40 years later.

It is a poignant book; telling the story not of the moral dilemma of whether the bomb should have been dropped or the effect it had on history’s greatest calamity, but instead the human cost of war, and total war in particular.

I highly recommend this book.

Especially in a time when many dismay at the current state of the world, or our direction in history, or even the possible doom AI may bring; it is important to remember the truly formidable challenges we as a species have faced in the past, and how we overcame them to make a world that is undoubtedly better than the one that led to WWII and the dawn of the atomic age.