Hiroshima Forever: The Ecology of Mourning

Abstract

This book offers a philosophical and psychological analysis of the effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the ways in which people dealt with the traumatic event. According to Perlman, Hiroshima is timeless and in order to avoid being trapped in its effects, we must both memorialize and mourn the time of injury. He discusses a psychological commemoration as a way to remember images and also suggests that survivors create a “house for images” or a place where those images pertaining to the bomb can dwell. He discusses the unfortunate but frequent use of group forgetfulness as a pattern of response, including denial and repression, that so many people turned to after the bombing. Lastly, Perlman describes the ecological loss that Hiroshima suffered and notes how memories of the bombing emerge from the earth just as they do from a person’s memory of the event.