I have travelled with Pellegrino to Japan to visit survivors of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and to consult with officials and historians there. Among that community he is well respected and considered an important voice for the history of these events. Pellegrino combines intense forensic detail—some of it new to history—with unfathomable heartbreak. The author unflinchingly chronicles these most devastating events in Japan, the only times nuclear weapons have been used against human beings, and begs us to hold hands and to pray that it never happens again. A must read for anyone with a conscience.
— James Cameron, director, producer, engineer, and explorer


By far the best book I have ever read on the subject. . . . No one I know has ever articulated more fully, more accurately, and more effectively the essential nature of the atomic bombings. A great book—a potential game-changer in the struggle to eliminate nuclear weapons.
— Steven Leeper, Hiroshima Jogakuin University, former chair of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation


The book opens with imagery that leaves one speechless. Pellegrino is a poet at heart, a poet with a Japanese soul.
— Francis Kakugawa, poet, Hiroshima family member


From the opening paragraphs, this book is gorgeous, poetic.
— James Morrow, author of Towing Jehova


I just finished reading the book again. Each time I take the journey, the words leave a stronger impression—the most important piece of literature written about the hibakusha (the exposed) since John Hershey’s Hiroshima.
— Paule Savinio, author of From Above


Charles Pellegrino’s writings have provided critical information, particularly on the first twenty-four hours after the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima. This information has added significantly [to our] knowledge and understanding about the medical and pathological events of the early period after the nuclear event. In turn, this information has allowed the development of a plan that could potentially save thousands of lives if another nuclear explosion, similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, occurs. Our military believes that this is inevitable.
— Norman Ende, MD, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Rutgers and Department of the Navy


Pellegrino fills this fascinating work with dark revelations, incredible imagery, and unforgettable characters. With a scientist's eye for detail, the author sets the record straight about what actually happened. So forget what you thought you knew about the August 1945 atomic bombings and their aftermath. This book is the definitive account.
— Bill Schutt, American Museum of Natural History


During my forty years as a senior scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, including thirty years of collaboration with Charlie Pellegrino, I have always found him to be a careful, thoughtful, imaginative, and honest researcher. I was involved in R&D on applications of fission and fusion nuclear energy [for] nuclear rockets, and Charlie and I collaborated on a next step: Interstellar probe designs based on anti-matter propulsion.
— James Powell, Brookhaven National Laboratory


Let's hope this book touches the hearts of the many and that such extreme methods of societal control are finally eliminated. . . . A monumental work.
— Roy Cullimore, founder and president, Droycon Bioconcepts


Charles Pellegrino's unique forensic archaeological approach . . . should be required reading for all those making decisions of war. Despite past attempts to suppress this history, Charles has succeeded in a detailed immortalization of one of the true turning points in human existence.
— Tom Dettweiler, NOAA ocean explorer and engineer, US Navy


Before reading this, I believed we should be prepared to do unto others as they would do unto us and do it first. I was wrong. I did not really know what an atomic bomb does (to the people beneath it). I believe anyone who even considers the first use of a nuclear weapon (or who designs one), has found the unforgivable sin.
— Amnon Rosenfeld, forensic anthropologist, Israel Geological Survey


This can be a powerful wake-up call for some of the younger generation—that rare combination of scientific expertise and profound humanism.
— Mark Selden, Asia Pacific Studies, Cornell University


Sober and authoritative: This is gleaming, popular wartime history, John Hersey infused with Richard Preston and a fleck of Michael Crichton. . . . [Pellegrino] certainly studies every kind of fallout and does not neglect the spiritual variety. He writes about one doctor who recalled that, ‘Those who survived the atomic bomb were, in general, the people who ignored others crying out in extremis or who stayed away from the flames, even when patients and colleagues shrieked from within them. . . . In short, those who survived the bomb were, if not merely lucky, in a greater or lesser degree selfish, self-centered—guided by instinct and not by civilization. And we know it, we who have survived.’
— New York Times


The tragedies and atrocities of World War II now belong to history, while Hiroshima is still part of our world, our continuing present, maybe our dreaded future. . . . Charles Pellegrino's account about what it was actually like to be on the ground in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, culled from survivors’ memories and his own work in forensic archaeology, is the most powerful and detailed I have ever read. It puts flesh on the skeletons. . . . This book offers more than just effective popular history. It is a kind of reminder. We have now lived long enough with the bomb to begin to take it for granted. [As] nations join an expanding nuclear ‘club,’ we are in danger, as MacArthur's committee was, of thinking of nuclear weapons as nothing but more sophisticated bows and arrows. [This book] gives us, instead, a glimpse of their horror. It makes us afraid again. As we should be.
— Washington Post


A tragic cautionary tale as well as a celebration of human resilience.
— People Magazine


Heart-stopping. Pellegrino dissects the complex political and military strategies that went into the atomic detonations and the untold suffering heaped upon countless Japanese civilians, weaving all of the book’s many elements into a wise, informed protest against any further use of these terrible weapons.
— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review


Pellegrino here chronicles history's most destructive attack by human beings on others of their species. . . . The author includes stories of instant and total devastation—people vaporizing, buildings disappearing—and improbable survivals and bizarre effects: permanent human shadows cast onto walls; a teacher whose face bore the imprint of a student’s writing she was examining when the flash came; a man whose eye problems were cured, another whose cancer went into remission. . . . Enormously painful to read, but absolutely essential to do so.
— Kirkus Reviews


The train of the title was bound for Nagasaki: thirty survivors of the Hiroshima bombing fled there, only to run straight into a second catastrophe. Pellegrino’s account is full of such terrible ironies—which he describes with a lucid, almost lyrical precision.
— Time Magazine


A frightening, grim, yet fascinating examination of the nuclear attacks on Japan. . . . This is shocking, well-written, and will counter the oft-expressed opinion that [nuclear bombs] are ‘just another weapon.’
— Booklist