Al Jazeera Podcasts.

Today, this week marks 80 years since atomic bombs fell on Japan, ending World War II.

A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its

usefulness to the enemy.

As nuclear threats returned to the headlines, we look back on the history that feels

like a warning.

I'm Kevin Horton, and this is the take. Thank you. that feels like a warning.

I'm Kevin Horton, and this is the take.

My name is Garrett Graff.

I'm a journalist and historian,

and I am the author of The Devil Reach Toward the Sky,

an oral history of the making and unleashing of the atomic bomb.

Okay. Well, Garrett, welcome to the take. So your book tells the story of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it's an oral history. I want to ask you a few questions about the book,

and then talk a little bit about what the story can tell us about the current nuclear climate.

And I even want to do a little AI arms race bonus question at the end. But first, the book.

It's based on testimony from 500 people, including scientists, workers, and survivors who lived through this time.

So tell me about this oral history format and what you were able to explore by using it.

To me, there's a particular power that comes from approaching these stories in the voices of the people who experienced

them, which is it takes you back to these moments in the moment when the outcome wasn't clear.

I think too often in telling history and teaching history, events seem neater, cleaner, simpler, and more preordained than they felt to anyone who was living through them at the time.

You know, sort of the chaos of our own modern moment is, I think, a great example of that.

We have no idea where the stories that we're covering

...