In case you're one of the three people around here who hasn't seen Bill Whittle's excellent schooling of Jon Stewart on the dropping of the atomic bombs, here it is.

Two excellent books on the final days of the Japanese Empire and that illuminate a great deal of the decision making and the reality of those final days of the Second World War I would suggest are, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, and The Day Man Lost: Hiroshima, 6 August 1945.