On Aug. 31, 1946, when The New Yorker published John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” the 30,000-word article’s impact was instantaneous and global.

Hersey had managed to get into occupied Japan and reach Hiroshima, then still a smoldering ruin after being decimated by a 10,000-pound uranium bomb on Aug. 6, 1945. He interviewed blast survivors about what it had been like to be on the receiving end of nuclear attack. His was the first major press report revealing, in excruciating detail, the aftermath of the bombing.