Unless one has direct, personal experience of war, it's impossible to imagine the sheer horror and devastation that it brings. Those who have witnessed such horror firsthand have been placed in a position from which they can give the rest of us a much better idea of what it actually involves.

That's what Michaito Ichimaru sets out to do in his essay "Nagasaki, August 9th, 1945," a truly harrowing account of the devastation and suffering caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb. As a doctor as well as an eyewitness, Ichimaru is able to offer a detailed account of events that displays an almost scientific level of objectivity. This means that, as well as responding to the litany of suffering on an emotional level, we can temper that visceral response with a more detached moral evaluation of the fateful decision to drop the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.