Hamline Books

Humanity on the Brink. Ground Zero as Multiple Ground Zeroes.

We are all on the edge of something terrible or something sublime. It is up to us. These wonderfully woven tales of teachers and their students in the first Ground Zero, Hiroshima, tell us much about the human endeavor. Both the good and the bad. If you are a teacher or a student concerned with how to think about and how to make peace you have found the right book.

Deep glimpses into what it is like for Americans to live, work, and study in Hiroshima with the specter of the atomic cloud hanging over all of our heads is part of this book. The specter of 9/11 of course hangs over all of this, too, in ways unforeseen but predictable when this book was first written.

Another part is the Japanese story, those voices so beautifully captured, as only Walter Enloe could, of Japanese victims who were also part of this terrible aggression, too. We are all both victims and aggressors - this is one lesson of this book.

The book would be an excellent text for High School or Middle School students. Any teacher concerned with Peace and Peace Studies need look no further for material. These are real stories of real people who confronted some awful truths and found some deeply-affecting stories of the human condition.

Especially in this day and age of easy, simplistic answers and policies from the top of chaos and violence, Lessons from Ground Zero has much to teach us about what it is to be human. And what we are to do if survival is a goal of our species.

Oasis of Peace gets to the heart of what happened in Hiroshima. A fresh take on the major issues surrounding this city forever burned into the human conciousness, this book brings us to new levels of understanding, pain, and transcendance. The author grew up in Hiroshima and then lived there as an adult as the head of the Hiroshima International School. This is a book especially for students and teachers. AN OUTSTANDING READ!