Table of Contents

Author's Note
Acknowledgments
Introduction to the 1985 edition The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski
Preface
1. The Strategy of an Immediate Showdown
2. The Strategy of a Delayed Showdown
3. The Decision to Postpone a Confrontation with Stalin
4. The Far East and Two Faces of the Strategy of Delay
5. The Tactics of the Potsdam Conference (I)
6. The Tactics of the Potsdam Conference (II)
7. American Diplomacy Takes the Offensive
8. Conclusions
Appendix I: A Note on the Historical Debate Over Questions Concerning Truman's 1945 Strategy of Delay
Appendix II: Excerpts from a 1946 US Intelligence Report
Appendix III: Stimson's Unsuccessful Attempt to Change the Strategy of Delay Before Leaving Office
Appendix IV: 'Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith': A Report from the Federal Council of Churches, 1946
Appendix V: Excerpts from 'The Challenge of Peace': National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on War and Peace, 1983
Bibliography of Important Sources
Notes
Index

About the Author

Gar Alperovitz is a historian and political economist and is President of the National Center for Economic Alternatives in Washington DC. He has been a fellow of Kings College Cambridge and the Kennedy Institute at Harvard. He has contributed to many publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Nation. A BBC special on Alperovitz's work was screened 1989.

Reviews

'A daring and elaborate work of historical reconstruction'
*New York Review of Books*

'Since its publication almost everyone who has written about the beginning of the atomic age has praised or denounced the book'
*New York Times*