The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.(Oilstreet)This week we’ll be talking with Charleston author James M. Scott, author of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War (2026, W.W. Norton & Company). With startling immediacy, Empire of Ashes illuminates the moral dilemma at the center of America’s decision to inflict total war upon Japan.

A thorough historian and a talented writer Scott brings to life the struggles – moral, scientific, and practical - faced by the Truman administration in the closing days of World War II.