Book Birthdays celebrate one year of a book’s life in reviews, social media posts, and more. This month we’re saying Happy First Book Birthday to 90 Seconds to Midnight: A Hiroshima Survivor’s Nuclear Odyssey (Potomac Books, 2025) by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs.
About the Book:
90 Seconds to Midnight tells the gripping and thought-provoking story of Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow, a thirteen-year-old girl living in Hiroshima in 1945, when the city was annihilated by an atomic bomb. Struggling with grief and anger, Thurlow set out to warn the world about the horrors of a nuclear attack in a crusade that has lasted seven decades.
Critical historical events need a personal narrative, and Thurlow is such a storyteller for Hiroshima. 90 Seconds to Midnight recounts Thurlow’s ascent from the netherworld where she saw, heard, and smelled death and her relentless efforts to protect the world from an unspeakable fate.
A Word from the Author:
A year ago, I was thrilled to hold my first copy of 90 Seconds to Midnight over which I had labored for seven years. In 2015, when my second biography, Jonas Salk: A Life, was published, I had enjoyed the experience so much that I decided to write one more. That year, 9 countries possessed almost 16,000 nuclear weapons. The risk to the human race was and still is enormous. As Beatrice Fihn, prior Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) pointed out: “When it comes to nuclear weapons, there is no after.” I had 5 grandchildren (now 8). What role could I play as a biographer? I decided to write the story of someone who had survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in order to educate myself and the general public. That’s when I found Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow living in Toronto.
As with my two prior subjects, I was driven by a central question about her character: How could a thirteen-year-old girl who witnessed so much death and destruction not languish in sorrow when her cherry blossom life ended in an instant? One challenge with a living subject is that her/his life keeps evolving. When I started, she had yet to have a major role in developing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of ICAN.
90 Seconds to Midnight is increasingly relevant given today’s global political environment. Nine countries possess over 12,400 nuclear warheads combined, and the last remaining bilateral nuclear arms reduction agreement between the United States and Russia has expired. Ignorance about nuclear weapons remains high. The humanitarian and environmental consequences of their use would be catastrophic: mass casualties, global climate disruption, and a famine affecting billions.
In general, people don’t want to hear about the potential destruction of our precious earth. I, too, was an ostrich. I wrote 90 Seconds to Midnight to educate and warn the reading public, inspired by Rudyard Kipling who wrote, “If history were told in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” I continue to hope that Setsuko’s life story will prompt others, especially the younger generation, to undertake the challenging task of eliminating nuclear weapons.
Reviews:
“A riveting read, timely and much needed. Almost a reference book, it’s a deeply-affecting first-person account of the unimaginable horrors through her eyes.”—Eli Beverley-Schack, Sydney Arts Guide
“DeCroes Jacobs’s 90 Seconds to Midnight should be required reading for any incumbent or aspiring political leader.”—Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Inside Story
“Dr. Jacobs’s timely and inspiring new book should move readers to learn more about the threat of nuclear destruction and to see how one devoted soul can move others to bring change.”—Robin Lindley, The Connector
UNP blog 