Assignment 4 - Drew

This, as many can guess, is the mushroom cloud that the atomic bomb "Little Boy" released after detonating over the city of Hiroshima in 1945. This image captures one of the most important events of the 20th century and perhaps in all of human history. But the power of this picture goes well beyond the the equivalent 16 kilotons of dynamite "Little Boy" unleashed on Hiroshima. In it is a whole new humanity, a humanity that has the ability to wipe itself out. On August 6th, 1945, the nuclear weapon made its debut on the world stage as a feasible weapon of war. From that day, a new kind of war was made known man-kind, a new kind of total war; a kind of total war that would terrorize a generation and threaten the planet. This snapshot, while only of a single mushroom cloud, would go on to represent the fear of the world in the 1950s and 60s that such a terror would be discharged upon their city or country. And to this day this image represents the gruesome reality that while the atomic alarmism of 50's and 60's is past, the shadow of nuclear holocaust cast by the vast arsenals of the nations of the world still looms over us.