Paul Ham

Examines the history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, arguing that it had little impact on the eventual outcome of war in the Pacific.

The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath

Hiroshima Nagasaki

1913

Yoko Moriwaki

Debbie Edwards

The diary of Yoko, a 13-year-old Japanese girl who lived near Hiroshima during the war Ages: 8-12 1945 was a hard time to be a child in Japan. Many had seen their cities destroyed by US bombers. Food, fuel and materials were in short supply. Yet spirits remained high. In April 1945, Yoko Moriwaki started high school in Hiroshima, excited to be a prestigious 'Kenjo' girl, and full of duty towards her parents, school and country. But the country was falling apart and in four months time her city would become the target for the first atomic bomb ever used as a weapon. In her diary, Yoko provides an account of that time - when conditions were so poor that children as young as twelve were required to work in industry; when fierce battles raged in the Pacific and children like Yoko believed victory was near. With additions by Yoko's relatives and fellow students, and an introduction by award-winning author Paul Ham, Yoko's Diary not only shows us the hopes, beliefs and daily life of a young girl in wartime Japan, it is a touching account of the consequences of the first nuclear bombing of a city.

The Life of a Young Girl in Hiroshima During WWII

Yoko's Diary

By looking deeply into the Führer's childhood, war experiences, and early political career, this rigorous narrative seeks to answer this question: How did the early, defining years of Hitler’s life affect his rise to power? When Adolf Hitler went to war in 1914, he was just 25 years old. It was a time he would later call the “most stupendous experience of my life.” That war ended with Hitler in a hospital bed, temporarily blinded by mustard gas. The world he eventually opened his newly healed eyes to was new and it was terrible: Germany had been defeated, the Kaiser had fled, and the army had been resolutely humbled. Hitler never accepted these facts. Out of his fury rose a white-hot hatred, an unquenchable thirst for revenge against the “criminals” who had signed the armistice, the socialists he accused of stabbing the army in the back, and, most violently, the Jews—a direct threat to the master race of his imagination—on whose shoulders he would pile all of Germany’s woes. By peeling back the layers of Hitler’s childhood, his war record, and his early political career, Paul Ham’s Young Hitler seeks the man behind the myth. More broadly, Paul Ham seeks to answer the question: Was Hitler’s rise to power an extreme example of a recurring type of demagogue—a politician who will do and say anything to seize power; who thrives on chaos; and who personifies, in his words and in his actions, the darkest prejudices of humankind?

The Making of the Führer

Young Hitler

Judy Nunn

Richard Flanagan

Peter FitzSimons

Nicole Alexander

Caroline Overington

Tom Keneally

Susan Duncan

Mike Carlton

This fine collection of great Australian writers’ includes pieces from Judy Nunn, Tom Keneally, Paul Ham, Peter FitzSimons, Mike Carlton, Richard Flanagan, Nicole Alexander, Susan Duncan and Caroline Overington. Featuring extracts from Elianne by Judy Nunn, Shame and the Captives by Tom Keneally, 1914 by Paul Ham, Ned Kelly by Peter FitzSimons, First Victory by Mike Carlton, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, Sunset Ridge by Nicole Alexander, Gone Fishing by Susan Duncan, and No Place Like Home by Caroline Overington – The Great Australian Writers' Collection 2013 is the perfect opportunity for readers to discover great new books from great Australian authors, or to get a taste for authors they might have heard about or read a great review about, but have been unsure if they’ll like their work. And the best part of all – it’s FREE! So start reading and sharing your new discoveries today.

The Great Australian Writers' Collection 2013

In this searing indictment of the rationale behind the First World War, Paul Ham argues that European leaders did not ‘sleepwalk’ into war, but that they fully accepted and understood the consequences of the decisions they were making. In August 1914, the European powers plunged the world into a war that would kill or wound 37 million people, tear down the fabric of society, uproot ancient political systems and set the world on course for the bloodiest century in human history. On the eve of the 100th anniversary of that terrible year, Ham takes the reader on a journey into the labyrinth, to reveal the complexity, the layered motives, the flawed and disturbed minds that drove the world to war. What emerges is a clear sense of what happened and why. 'To understand the past,' Ham concludes, 'and share that understanding, is the chief role of the historian. To understand the past is to liberate ourselves from its awful shadow and steel ourselves against it happening again.'

1914 The Year The World Ended

From small-scale battles of the ancient world to devastating modern conflicts, this book provides a definitive and comprehensive record of the armed combats that have shaped the political and cultural landscape of the world in which we live. 1001 BATTLES THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY is an essential guide to the most intense, dramatic, important, and extraordinary conflicts over the last 5000 years and the consequences of those clashes on societies around the globe.

1001 Battles That Changed the Course of History

After the fall of Singapore in 1942, the conquering Japanese Army transferred some 2500 British and Australian prisoners to a jungle camp at Sandakan, on the east coast of North Borneo. There they were beaten, broken, worked to death, thrown into bamboo cages on the slightest pretext and subjected to tortures so ingenious and hideous that the victims were driven to the brink of madness. But it was only to be the beginning of the nightmare. In late 1944 when Allied aircraft began bombing the coastal towns of Sandakan and Jesselton, the Japanese resolved to abandon the prison camp and move the prisoners 250 miles inland to Ranau. The journey there became known as the Sandakan Death marches. Of the thousand plus prisoners who set out on the epic marches, only six survived. This is both their story and the story of the fallen.

Sandakan

A study of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, including an in-depth history of Vietnam.

The Australian War

Vietnam

The untold story of the Sandakan death marches of World War II. After the fall of Singapore, in February 1942, the Japanese conquerors rounded up tens of thousands of British and Australian soldiers and shipped them to prison camps scattered throughout Hirohito’s newly won Empire. The fall of Britain’s ‘impregnable fortress’ was the greatest humiliation in British military history, for which Churchill never forgave the Japanese. But nothing would surpass the wretched fate of some 2,700 British and Australian prisoners who were shipped to British North Borneo later that year. They landed in Sandakan, on the east coast of the island, after a 10-day voyage on a Japanese ‘hell’ ship, and were herded into a jungle camp some eight miles inland. Thus began the three-year ordeal of the Sandakan prisoners of war - a barely known story of unimaginable horror.

The Untold Story of the Sandakan Death Marches

In this harrowing history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Paul Ham argues against the use of nuclear weapons, drawing on extensive research and hundreds of interviews to prove that the bombings had little impact on the eventual outcome of the Pacific War. In this gripping narrative, Ham demonstrates convincingly that misunderstandings and nationalist fury on both sides led to the use of the bombs. Ham also gives powerful witness to its destruction through the eyes of eighty survivors, from twelve-year-olds forced to work in war factories to wives and children who faced the holocaust alone. Hiroshima Nagasaki presents the grisly unadorned truth about the bombings, blurred for so long by postwar propaganda, and transforms our understanding of one of the defining events of the twentieth century.

In this book, Paul Ham examines the nuclear bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Investigando a juventude de Hitler, seus diários de guerra e o início de sua carreira política, Paul Ham desvenda o homem por trás do mito. Biógrafos normalmente deixam em segundo plano a história de Hitler na Primeira Guerra Mundial. Censores nazistas fizeram de tudo para suprimir os fatos de sua juventude, e, para a maioria das pessoas, seu papel na Grande Guerra permanece obscuro. Quando jovem, ninguém diria que Adolf Hitler seria o futuro líder da Alemanha, conquistador da Europa e exterminador dos judeus. Sem ambições acadêmicas e com poucos amigos, ele era teimoso e obstinado, considerado excêntrico e sem habilidades sociais. Então, quais combinações de traços, circunstâncias e eventos o moldaram para que se tornasse quem se tornou? As respostas estão nas experiências de sua juventude, em Linz, Viena e Munique, e como um jovem soldado na Grande Guerra. Quando Hitler foi para a guerra, em 1914, com 25 anos, embarcou no que mais tarde definiria como "a experiência mais estupenda da vida". Ao fim da guerra, na cama de um hospital e temporariamente cego pelo gás de mostarda, ele abriu os olhos em um novo e terrível mundo: a Alemanha havia sido derrotada e o Kaiser estava foragido. Hitler, porém, nunca aceitou esses eventos. A guerra foi uma marca dolorosa em sua personalidade, e dela nasceu a determinação para a vingança contra os "criminosos" que assinaram o armistício, contra os socialistas que ele acusava de esfaquear o exército pelas costas e, mais violentamente, contra os judeus. "Um estudo conciso de um dos homens mais fascinantes e cruéis da história... Essencial para qualquer um interessado em história militar." — Soldier

Os anos de formação do Führer

O jovem Hitler

The discovered diary of Yoko, a 13-year-old Japanese girl who lived near Hiroshima during the war Ages: 8-12 the diary of Yoko, a 13-year-old Japanese girl who lived near Hiroshima during the war 1945 was a hard time to be a child in Japan. Many had seen their cities destroyed by US bombers. Food, fuel and materials were in short supply. Yet spirits remained high. In April 1945, Yoko Moriwaki started high school in Hiroshima, excited to be a prestigious 'Kenjo' girl, and full of duty towards her parents, school and country. But the country was falling apart and in four months time her city would become the target for the first atomic bomb ever used as a weapon. In her diary, Yoko provides an account of that time - when conditions were so poor that children as young as twelve were required to work in industry; when fierce battles raged in the Pacific and children like Yoko believed victory was near. With additions by Yoko's relatives and fellow students, and an introduction by award-winning author Paul Ham, Yoko's Diary not only shows us the hopes, beliefs and daily life of a young girl in wartime Japan, it is a touching account of the consequences of the first nuclear bombing of a city. Ages: 8-12 SHORtLIStED in the 2014 CBCA Awards SHORtLIStED in the 2014 NSW Premier's History Awards

Paul Ham

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