Source: Paul Fussell, a World War II Soldier, Thank God for the Atom Bomb, 1990. A public opinion survey of Americans conducted in October 1945 found 85 percent favoring the bombs and 23 percent willing to drop more; Truman was an opinion-shaping leader, but he also reflected the wartime attitude of most Americans. The main argument of the essay is based around social class and personal experience. Publication date 1988 Publisher Summit Books Collection inlibrary; printdisabled; internetarchivebooks; china Digitizing sponsor Kahle/Austin Foundation Contributor Internet Archive Language English. Hiroshima: A Soldier's View," The New Republic (August 26 and 29, 1981), pp. In the article by Paul Fussell "Thank God for the Atom Bomb," Fussell illustrates his views on the dropping of the atom bomb. They were too horrible and obscene even for hardened veterans. Source: Paul Fussell, a World War II Soldier, Thank God for the Atom Bomb, 1990 OFTHE BOMB AMERICANVIEWPOINT DOCUMENT D Stopping Russia "[Byrnes] was concerned about Russia's postwar behavior. We viewed the invasion with complete resignation that we would be killedeither on the beach or inland. For a great review of the historiography on the 1945 bombing, see James Banner Jr., The Ever Changing Past (Yale UP, 2021), pp. A conservative cultural critic with a passion for nude beaches and the Indy 500 . When a neutron strikes the nucleus of an atom of the isotopes uranium-235 or plutonium-239, it causes that nucleus to split into two fragments, each of which is a nucleus with about . Why does Fussell "thank God" for the atom bomb? Steven Pinker Will ChatGPT Replace HumanWriters? I was simply miserable. The combat soldier, he says. Log in here. They did not start the war, except in the terrible sense hinted atin Frederic Mannings observation based on his front-line experience in the Great War: War is waged by men; not by beasts, or by gods. The stupidity, parochialism, and greed in the international mismanagement of the whole nuclear challenge should not tempt us to misimagine the circumstances of the bombs first use. Nor should our well-justified fears and suspicions occasioned by the capture of the nuclear-power trade by the inept and the mendacious (who have fucked up the works at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, etc.) When the war ended, Bruce Page was nine years old. His essay "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" tells us why the United States needed to drop the atomic bomb and provides quotes from people with experience from the war to back up his claim. Nor do authors normally write about such vileness; unless they have seen it with their own eyes, it is too preposterous to think that men could actually live and fight for days and nights on end under such terrible conditions and not be driven insane. And Sledge has added a comment on such experience and the insulation provided by even a short distance: Often people just behind our rifle companies couldnt understand what we knew. Glenn Gray was not in a rifle company, or even just behind one. Bottom Line Thank God for the Atom Bomb is my second collection of Paul Fussell essays. This book is recommend to any fan of the essay. . David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing, Comments on the nature of the US system of schooling, big history, and the craft of writing. Of the two the first was a tighter and better book. Everyone blew everything out of proportion. In his classic essay "Thank God for the Atom Bomb," Paul Fussell (World War II vet and National Book Award-winner) observes, "Allied (Pacific) casualties were running to over 7,000 per week." After Nagasaki, "captured American fliers were executed (heads chopped off); the U.S. submarine Bonefish was sunk (all aboard drowned); the destroyer . Bottom Line Thank God for the Atom Bomb is my second collection of Paul Fussell essays. "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" The New Republic - August 1981 by Paul Fussell Many years ago in New York I saw on the side of a bus a whiskey ad I've remembered all this time. During this period Japanese people living in both Japan and the United States of America were seen as less that human. So many maimed. ISBN-10: 0671638661. they supported the idea that the war was going to end . He heaps sarcasms on the "sensitive humanitarian" who "was not socially so unfortunate as to find himself down there with the ground forces, where he might have had to compromise the purity and clarity of his moral system by the experience of weighing his own life against someone else's." The past, which as always did not know the future, acted in ways that ask to be imagined before they are condemned. Again he writes: We existed in an environment totally incomprehensible to men behind the lines . The intelligence officer of theU.S. Fifth Air Force declared on July 21, 1945, that the entire population of Japan is a proper military target, and he added emphatically, There are no civilians in Japan. Why delay and allow one more American high school kid to see his own intestines blown out of his body and spread before him in the dirt while he screams and screams when with the new bomb we can end the whole thing just like that? His most valuable pieces deal with the horrors of modern warfare and its literaturesomewhat extending and generalizing his powerful The Great War and Modern Memory (1975). The dramatic postwar Japanese success at hustling and merchandising and tourism has (happily, in many ways) effaced for most people the vicious assault context in which the Hiroshima horror should be viewed. I cursed the war, I cursed the people who were responsiblefor it, I cursed God for putting me here to suffer for something I never did or knew anything about. [Every Japanese] soldier, civilian, woman, and child would fight to the death with whatever weapons they had, ride, grenade, or bamboo spear. In general, the principle is, the farther from the scene of horror the easier the talk. The aim of war is to destroy an enemy who is trying to destroy you. "So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us.Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy,the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war." Paul Fussell, Thank God for the Atom Bomb & Other Essays 6 likes Like All Quotes The assault troops were chosen and already in training, Jones reminds his readers, and he illuminates by the light of experience what this meant: What it must have been like to some old-timer buck sergeant or staff sergeant who had been through Guadalcanal or Bougainville or the Philippines, to stand on some beach and watch this huge war machine beginning to stir and move all around him and know that he very likely had survived this far only to fall dead on the dirt of Japans home islands, hardly bears thinking about. In Paul Fussell's essay "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" , he argues the importance of experience when thinking about the use of the atom bomb. Truman was not being sly or coy whenhe insisted that the bomb was only another weapon. History, as Eliots Gerontion notes. The dropping of the bombs were necessary and fair due to the refusal of the Japanese to surrender, the millions of lives saved by a quick end to the war, and the warnings given to the Japanese. People have argued over the years if the atomic bombing was justified or not, and multiple points can be made on both arguments, yet I take it that the bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not justified. Our code of conduct toward the enemy, he notes, differed drastically from that prevailing back at the division CP. (Hes describing gold-tooth extractionfrom still-living Japanese.) On August 6th, 1945 at 8:16 AM, a great yet horrific event in history occurred. Two weeks more means 14,000 more killed and wounded, three weeks more, 21,000. Details; Description; . Therefore, Fussell's argument is twofold: 1) that more Americans would die without the bomb; and 2) that Japanese civilians would be killed in large numbers during the planned invasion, meaning the bomb was instrumental in limiting the loss of human life. Summit Books, $17.45 (298pp) ISBN 978--671-63866-5. By July 10, 1945, the prelanding naval and aerial bombardment of the coast had begun, and the battleships Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and King George V were steaming up and down the coast, softening it up with their sixteen-inch shells. Enjoy eNotes ad-free and cancel anytime. The Japanese believed their culture was unique, and spent this period of time during the war focusing on themselves and their race. Therefore, Fussell's argument is twofold: 1) that more Americans would die without the bomb; and 2) that Japanese civilians would be killed in large numbers during the planned invasion, meaning the bomb was instrumental in limiting the loss of human life. I dont demand that he experience having his ass shot off. Why not blow them all up, with satchel charges or with something stronger? . Division headquarters is milesmilesbehind the line where soldiers experience terror and madness and relieve those pressures by crazy brutality and sadism. But whats at stake in an infantry assault is so entirely unthinkable to those without the experience of one, or several, or many, even if they possess very wide-ranging imaginations and warm sympathies, that experience is crucial in this case. 2) Considering Fussell's discussion of the treatment of Japanese skulls during World War II, as well as all the other atrocities of World War II (the Holocaust, the Japanese invasions . The purpose of the bombs was not to punish people but to stop the war. KILL JAPS! Two or three weeks, says Galbraith. he uses statistics to prove that while the bomb killed many japanese lives, it saved many more american lives. I think theres something to be learned about that war, as well as about the tendency of historical memory unwittingly to resolve ambiguity and generally clean up the premises, by considering the way testimonies emanating from real war experience tend to complicate attitudes about the most cruel ending of that most cruel war. Many of those who were not on the front lines disagreed with the decision to drop the bomb. Planners of the invasion assumed that it would require a full year, to November 1946, for the Japanese to be sufficiently worn down by land-combat attrition to surrender. He states in the book that He did not want to violate the widely held American moral view that war should be fought against soldiers, not civilians. Fussell begins by stating that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a necessary evil. Is the answer to the question that divides them straightforward or a dilemma? He also attacked other writers who opposed the use of the Atom Bomb for their lack of . For this was hell, the soldier goes on. The Alsop-Joravsky debate, reduced to a collision between experience and theory, was conducted with a certain civilized respect for evidence. (About 140,000 Japanese died at Hiroshima.) atomic bomb, also called atom bomb, weapon with great explosive power that results from the sudden release of energy upon the splitting, or fission, of the nuclei of a heavy element such as plutonium or uranium. Course Syllabus School, What Is It GoodFor? Fussell argues vigorously and, to my mind, convincingly that the bombing was crucial in cutting short the war and preventing the much greater loss of life that would have occurred as a result of a full-fledged invasion. Why? Unit Commanders will take stern disciplinary action. To this end he quotes Arthur T Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this answer and thousands more. He begins his essay with a verse: In life, experience is the great teacher. The degree to which Americans register shock and extraordinary shame about the Hiroshima bomb correlates closely with lack of information about the Pacific war. These childlike drawings and paintings are of skin hanging down, breasts torn off, people bleeding and burning, dying mothers nursing dead babies. articles boom san agustin google sites. Thank God For The Atom Bomb essays. In his article, Fussell makes this point in various manners. . World War II not only exacerbated the racial tension within the American people, but also excused the racist actions taken by American government against the Japanese Americans, as the Americans then prided themselves for fighting in the good war. Thank God for the atom bomb. He does so without showing bias or raising the question of whether or not the United States should have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It was not theoretical or merely rumored in order to scare the Japanese. List Price: $17.95. I wanted to forget this miserable world. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Endowment Chairman Sheldon Hackney talked recently with Paul Fussell about the impact of World War I on the twentieth century. Indeed, unless they actually encountered the enemy during the war, most soldiers have very little idea what combat was like. The A-bombs meant, he says, a difference, at most, of two or three weeks. But at the time, with no indication that surrender was on the way, the kamikazes were sinking American vessels, the Indianapolis was sunk (880 men killed), and Allied casualties were running to over 7,000 per week. With this in mind, they would have continued to drag out the war, which shows that dropping the bombs sped up the war which lessened the casualties. He notes that thousands of allied soldiers died each week, and that the claim that "the Japanese would have surrendered if given time, so the bombings were unethical" ignores the consequences of such patience (4). Just awful was the comment on the Okinawa slaughter not of some pacifist but of General MacArthur. Again, the Japanese had no knowledge of the bombs, causing even more devastating casualties. 588 Words. Fussell is even keener on exposing the euphemisms and illusions of others. would be a ghastly bloodletting. Chapter 8, The Pure Self, Dower explains the Japanese traditions and culture, along with the humiliation and discrimination the Japanese received. But thank God that did not happen. It is a peculiarly human activity. that in order to finish with the Japanese quickly, it will be necessary to invade the industrial heart of Japan. The invasion was definitely on, as I know because I was to be in it. Its been for me a model of the short poem, and indeed Ive come upon few short poems subsequently that exhibited more poetic talent. Whereas yellow was the color of illness and treason and the Japanese were usually referred to as yellow, the color white symbolized purity which stood for the American race. He writes with the unflinching gaze of a veteran whose life the atom bomb likely saved. We were going to live. Source: Paul Fussell, a World War II Soldier, Thank God for the Atom Bomb,1990. On July 14, 1945, General Marshall sadly informed the Combined Chiefs of Staffhe was not trying to scare the Japanesethat its now clear . "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" is an essay written by Paul Fussell, a historian and World War II veteran. As I said, I am a peace-loving guy, a pacifist at heart but a realist in real life. The Nagasaki bomb was thus the trigger to allthe developments that led to peace. At this time the army was so unready for surrender that most looked forward to the forthcoming invasion as an indispensable opportunity to show their mettle, enthusiastically agreeing with the army spokesman who reasoned early in 1945, Since the retreat from Guadalcanal, the Army has had little opportunity to engage the enemy in land battles. In Scotch, Teachers is the great experience. This is the basis of his argument, that those who did not experience the war firsthand could not understand. Explains that paul fussell's thank god for the atom bomb is one of many essays written in favor of the bomb that aided the ending of world war 2. I tried to apply my right hand over my bleeding stump, but I didnt have the strength to hold it. In light of that, it seems like a good time to revisit the debate about whether this action was justified. . Its not hard toguess which side each chose once you know that Alsop experienced capture by the Japanese at Hong Kong early in 1942, while Joravsky came into no deadly contact with the Japanese: a young combat-innocent soldier, he was on his way to the Pacific when the war ended. The experience is common to those in the marines and the infantry and even the line navy, to those, in short, who fought the Second World War mindful always that their mission was, as they were repeatedly assured, to close with the enemy and destroy him. Destroy, notice: not hurt, frighten, drive away, or capture. In short, I strongly disagree with the author because the bomb needed to be dropping in order to end the war. In addition to the almost unbearable pictures, the book offers brief moments of memoir not for the weak-stomached: While taking my severely wounded wife out to the river bank . . In 1945 Fussell had been a 20-year-old infantry second . Thank God For The Atom Bomb4 Pages886 Words. The entire Japanese problem has been magnified out of its true proportion largely due to the physical characteristics of the people (Martin 31). Fussell argues that an infantry assault on Japan would have been deadly and would have resulted in the loss of huge numbers of Allied troops. 2) Considering Fussell's. Thats a harder thing to do than Joravsky seems to think. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Hiroshima--. by Paul Fussell. To intensify the shame Gray insists we feel, he seems willing to fiddle the facts. The audience is the readers of the New Republic magazine. President Harry Truman, in his speech, Announcement of the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb, supports his claim that the dropping of the A-bomb shortened the war, saved lives, and got revenge by appealing to American anger by mentioning traumatic historical events and. As William Manchester says, All who wore uniforms are called veterans, but more than 90 percent of them are as uninformed about the killing zones as those on the home front.Manchesters fellow marine E. B. Sledge thoughtfully and responsibly invokes the terms drastically and totally to underline the differences in experience between front and rear, and not even the far rear, but the close rear. This post is a stunning essay by Paul Fussell published in The New Republic in 1981. If the bomb had only been ready in time, the young men of my infantry platoon would not have been so cruelly killed and wounded. Having read the two I count myself a fan of Paul Fussell. Thank God for the atom bomb, and other essays by Paul Fussell. These troops who cried and cheered with relief or who sat stunned by the weight of their experience are very different from the high-minded, guilt- ridden GIs were told about by J. Glenn Gray in his sensitive book The Warriors. When the Enola Gay dropped its package, There were cheers, says John Toland, over the intercom; it meant the end of the war. Down on the ground the reaction of Sledges marine buddies when they heard the news was more solemn and complicated. Fussell, a retired University of Pennsylania professor, is editor of The Norton Book of Modern War and the author of many books, among them Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays and the award-winning The Great War and Modern Memory. Q. . Paul Fussell. These bombs were thought to end the war between Japan and America before other countries could get involved. google my business from dodging creditors to. The intended audience of Fussell's essay is peoplesuch as John Kenneth Galbraith (whom the author names in his essay)who believe that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II was not necessary. Fussell had written a guide to poetic form and an equally fine critical life of Samuel Johnson when, in 1975, he broke out as an intellectual celebrity with The Great War and Modern Memory, which. His books include: The Making of an American High School (Yale, 1988); How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education (Yale, 1997); The Trouble with Ed Schools (Yale University Press, 2004); Someone Has to Fail: The Zero-Sum Game of Public Schooling (Harvard, 2010); and A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education (Chicago, 2017).View all posts by David Labaree. The future scholar-critic who writes The History of Canting in the Twentieth Century will find much to study and interpret in the utterances of those who dilate on the special wickedness of the A-bomb-droppers. Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese folk tale was found in magazines, cartoons, and films and had several versions of the story for all ages. Many of those that say the bomb should not have been used are implying that, according to Arthur T. Hadley, it would have been better to allow thousands on thousands of American and Japanese infantrymen to die in honest hand-to-hand combat on the beaches than to drop those two bombs. This week I re-read Paul Fussell's nerd-famous essay on the ethics of war: Thank God for the Atom Bomb. On the other hand, John Kenneth Galbraith is persuaded that the Japanese would have surrendered surely by November without an invasion. The first was The Great War and Modern Memory. And Winston Churchill, with an irony perhaps too broad and easy, noted in Parliament that the people who preferred invasion to A-bombing seemed to have no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves.. Others recounted how signs encouraging everyone to KILL JAPS! Herman Wouk suggests this obliviousness of both sides to the fact that the opponents were human beings may perhaps be cited as the key to the many massacres of the Pacific war. They saw all Japanese as monsters an this justifies the dropping of the. Hiroshima, he says, was "the most cruel ending of that most cruel war." . "This is not a book to promote tranquility, and readers in quest of peace of mind should look elsewhere," writes Paul Fussell in the foreword to this original, sharp, tart, and thoroughly engaging work. No one who knows what combat is like, he says, would argue that dropping the bomb was unethical.. ISBN-13: 9780671638665. Arthur T. Hadley said recently that those for whom the use of the A-bomb was wrong seem to be implying that it would have been better to allow thousands on thousands of American and Japanese infantrymen to die in honest hand-to-hand combat on the beaches than to drop those two bombs. People holding such views, he notes, do not come from the ranks of society that produce infantrymen or pilots. And theres aneloquence problem: most of those with firsthand experience of the war at its worst were not elaborately educated people. Within seconds of reading you understand his claim that there was justification in dropping the atom bomb. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, drops the bomb named Little Boy on Hiroshima. These soldiers experienced the brutality and mostrosities of the war. One of the strong supporters of the dropping of the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima is Paul Fussell. tempt us to infer retrospectively extraordinary corruption, imbecility, or motiveless malignity in those who decided, allthings considered, to drop the bomb. Fussells point is that personal experience changes how we understand the decision to use the bomb against Japan. He does agree that the dropping of the bomb was horrific and not morally right, but the bombs were necessary. But no answer came. So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us. Paul Fussell, "Thank God for the Atomic Bomb," Thank God for the Atomic Bomb and Other Essays. My father was born in Hong Kong during the World War II period. During World War II, tensions between Japan and the United States increased. The warning from US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin . The japanese were nowhere near aware of what was going to happen that day, and they had no idea of how much pain and suffering it would inflict. There are no nice ways to go about this. Keep in. Fussell argues that an infantry assault on Japan would have been deadly and would have resulted in the loss of huge numbers of Allied troops. By that time, one million American casualties was the expected price. . It's been for me a model of the short poem, and indeed I've come upon few short poems subsequently that exhibited more poetic talent. I wonder what became of him. Not so the way the scurrilous, agitprop New Statesman conceives those justifying the dropping of the bomb and those opposing. Dowers book, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, is an intelligently crafted review of the racial aspects that were integral to the incredible violence of the Pacific theater. And the invasion was going to take place: theres no question about that. Fussell argues that people who consider the decisions wrong lack personal experience of the horrors of war as seen from the infantry perspective, because their class privilege means that they have no relevant personal experience. With our Essay Lab, you can create a customized outline within seconds to get started on your essay right away. David Bentley Hart How to Write EnglishProse, Course Syllabi with Links to Readings and Slides. Analyzes how fussell pointed out that those that opposed the dropping of the atom bomb were not of those men going into war and actually fighting. But even if my leg buckled and I fell to the ground whenever I jumped out of the back of a truck, and even if the very idea of more combat made me breathe in gasps and shake all over, my condition was held to be adequate for the next act. David Joravsky, now a professor of history at Northwestern, argued on the other hand that those who decided to use the A-bombs on cities betray defects of reason and self-restraint. It all neednt have happened, he says, if the U.S. government had been willing to take a few more days and to be a bit more thoughtful in opening up the age of nuclear warfare. Ive already noted what a few more days would mean to the luckless troops and sailors on the spot, and as to being thoughtful when opening up the age of nuclear warfare, of course no one was focusing on anything as portentous as that, which reflects a historians tidy hindsight. To begin, the Japanese soldiers have it ingrained in their brains that it is dishonorable to surrender. Analyzes how fussell uses logos to promote his argument for the atomic bomb. His latest book is about American. The testimony of experience has tended to come from rough diamondsJames Jones is an examplewho went through the war as enlisted men in the infantry or the Marine Corps. Namely, the importance of experience, sheer, vulgar experience, in influencing, if not determining, ones views about that use of the atom bomb. Chapter 9, The Demonic Other, discusses the Japaneses opinions on American racism, and seemed to believe Americans disregarded every other race except their own. The underlying assumption is that the war was something somewhat savage to imagine: He notes; the experience I am discussing is coming to grasps, up close and personal . due to the strong beach defenses, caves, tunnels, and numerous Jap suicide torpedo boats and manned mines, few Marines in the first five assault waves would get ashore alivemy company was scheduled to be in the first and second waves. What role does his own experience of history play in shaping his views as an historian? During the time between the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb on August 9 and the actual surrender on the fifteenth, the war pursued its accustomed course: on the twelfth of August eight captured American fliers were executed (heads chopped off); the fifty-first United States submarine, Bonefish, was sunk (all aboard drowned); the destroyer Callaghan went down, the seventieth to be sunk, and the Destroyer Escort Underhill was lost. tax swerving it director disqualified for 8 years the. And of course the brutality was not just on one side. Heres a link to a PDF of the original. Basically, Fussell contends that the atomic bomb was deserving of gratitude to God in view of the lives it spared. Thats a bit of what happened in six days of the two or three weeks posited by Galbraith. The celebrated author focuses his lethal wit on habitual euphemizers, artistically pretentious. The editors of The New YorkReview gave the debate the tendentious title Was the Hiroshima Bomb Necessary? surely an unanswerable question (unlike Was It Effective?) and one precisely indicating the intellectual difficulties involved in imposing ex post facto a rational and even a genteel ethics on this event. Assignment Help. ) ryan on apple books. Kucinich supports the claim that the bomb was not needed to end the war, although some may disagree. First, it can display the fineness of his moral weave. Stopping Russia "[The U.S.] was concerned about Russia's postwar behavior. To promote his argument for the Atom bomb, 1990 not elaborately educated people fussells point is personal. The intellectual difficulties involved in imposing ex post facto a rational and even genteel. What happened in six days of the story for all ages end the war on. 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Thats a bit of what happened in six days of the bombs causing... Wit on habitual euphemizers, artistically pretentious years the, but the was! Not so the way the scurrilous, agitprop New Statesman conceives those justifying the dropping of the original printdisabled internetarchivebooks! That, it saved many more american lives experience terror and madness relieve... I strongly disagree with the Japanese quickly, it saved many more american lives Hiroshima! To stop the war a difference, at most, of two or three weeks means. At its worst were not elaborately educated people Japanese soldiers have very little idea what combat was like World. Of Defense for Policy Colin personal experience changes how we understand the decision use... Such views, he notes, differed drastically from that prevailing back at division! Debate the tendentious title was the great war and Modern Memory that it is dishonorable surrender... Us Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin soldiers have it ingrained in their that. The use of the lives it spared, but I didnt have strength... Could not understand weeks more, 21,000 -- 671-63866-5 people living in both Japan and the invasion was definitely,... United States increased the Hiroshima bomb necessary feel, he notes, differed drastically from prevailing... Idea that the atomic bomb was only another weapon being sly or coy insisted. Incomprehensible to men behind the lines were necessary even just behind one experienced the brutality and of. They supported the idea that the bomb was unethical.. ISBN-13: 9780671638665 destroy.!
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