Review : Past shame

To crack a nut, take one sledgehammer . . . Well, that seems to be Gar
Alperovitz’s approach in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Fontana,
£9.99, ISBN 0 00 638680 6). He uses a mass of documentary evidence
gathered in a great fat book to reach the unstartling conclusion that the US
dropped atomic bombs on Japan to frighten the Russians. Ho hum.