As a World War II combat soldier, Howard Zinn took part in the aerial bombing of Royan, France. Two decades later, he was invited to visit Hiroshima and meet survivors of the atomic attack. In this short and powerful book, Zinn offers his deep personal reflections and political analysis of these events, their consequences, and the profound influence they had in transforming him from an order-taking combat soldier to one of the greatest living anti-authoritarian, antiwar historians writing today. Zinn says that only by embracing the truth of history can ordinary people, rethinking their role, find the possibility for redemption and change. Published on the sixty-fifth anniversary the bombing of Hiroshima.