John Hersey
American writer and journalistWikipedia
15
MENTIONS
11
EPISODES
10
PODCASTS
Search complete. 15 mentions across 11 episodes found for "John Hersey".
Oct 21, 2026
Larry P. ArnnHOST
And it was a city that had been relatively untouched.
Larry P. ArnnHOST
And of course, what this book does, John Hersey, it's a very good book.
Larry P. ArnnHOST
And what did he explain? This guy is a journalist.
Larry P. ArnnHOST
He went and interviewed people who survived.
Susan OrleanGUEST
Simply being in the company, uh, both literally and figuratively, the company of the great writers of nonfiction.
Susan OrleanGUEST
And I used to, during the day, go into the library at the magazine and just look at old copies that had A.J. Liebling, John Hersey, you know, these, these writers who were the foundational writers of nonfiction, and simply looking at their work and, um, learning from it.
Susan OrleanGUEST
There was also something really important that The New Yorker always embraced, and that was feeling very comfortable with the writer's perspective.
Susan OrleanGUEST
The, the kind of omniscient narrator that, uh, you find in newspapers and even in, uh, most magazines-
Susan OrleanGUEST
Simply being in the company, both literally and figuratively, the company of the great writers of nonfiction.
Susan OrleanGUEST
And I used to, during the day, go into the library at the magazine and just look at old copies that had A.J. Liebling, John Hersey, you know, these... writers who were the foundational writers of nonfiction, and simply looking at their work and learning from it, there was also something really important that the New Yorker always embraced, and that was feeling very comfortable with the writer's perspective and The kind of omniscient narrator that you find in newspapers and even in most magazines, the kind of all-knowing, all-seeing, and presenting a story as if it was objectively true – That was never the New Yorker's style, and there was never any self-consciousness about saying, this is the writer telling you a story, and it is, by definition, affected by the writer's telling of the story.
Susan OrleanGUEST
So in some cases, that was merely a matter of using first person at times in the middle of these stories that were heavily reported.
Susan OrleanGUEST
But the writer... didn't pretend not to be there.
speaker_3HOST
We have to look at the rawest, most sobering texts on this list.
speaker_4HOST
We move now from the internal psychological trauma of the Meiji era to the literal physical devastation of 1945, and the foundational text here is Hiroshima by John Hersey, published in 1946.
speaker_3HOST
Originally, this was published as a full single issue of The New Yorker magazine, which was unprecedented.
speaker_4HOST
Yes, the entire issue was dedicated to it.
John ChapmanHOST
Would you like to join me in congratulating Mr. Drake, Ms. Boland, Ms. Matthews, and company for giving us such a pleasantly horrifying hour? I hope you will join us next week when we'll have a fine comedy drama, A Bell for Adano.
John ChapmanHOST
This is Paul Osborne's Best Plays adaptation of John Hersey's novel, and our leading roles will be played by Arthur Kennedy and Myron McCormick.
John ChapmanHOST
This is Chapman saying goodbye until next week.
John ChapmanHOST
[instrumental music]
Michael LewisGUEST
Hunter Thompson, he becomes a Hell's Angel to write about the Hell's Angels.
Michael LewisGUEST
Further back, John Hersey, wonderful New Yorker writer, wrote a profile of Harry Truman where...
Michael LewisGUEST
This is where he's in the bath, right? They go to steam room naked together.
Dan HeathADVERTISER
Mm-hmm.
17 MINS LATER
Michael LewisGUEST
Sure.
Michael LewisGUEST
I mean, why not? But – But with Obama, it was more complicated than I'm profiling Obama.
Michael LewisGUEST
What happened is I had a couple of glasses of wine late one night, and I thought, what would be a cool story? And I thought of that story, John Hersey writing about Harry Truman.
Michael LewisGUEST
I thought, he got into the shoes of the president.
speaker_1HOST
It is.
speaker_1HOST
He points out massive omissions like Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day and John Hersey's Hiroshima.
speaker_1HOST
He even frames the Holocaust as an intentional and not functional event to the war, bringing up a massive academic debate.
speaker_0HOST
So what does this all mean? I mean, curating a list like this feels like trying to pack a single suitcase for a 10 year trip.
Helena Bonham CarterNARRATOR
But few outside of Japan knew how badly survivors were suffering.
Helena Bonham CarterNARRATOR
Then, in 1946, Tanimoto met an American journalist, John Hersey.
Helena Bonham CarterNARRATOR
Hersey was writing an article for the New Yorker magazine.
Helena Bonham CarterNARRATOR
He interviewed Tanimoto and five other survivors.
Jeffrey RobinsonGUEST
And I went to the classic one, the gold standard, the platinum standard of all long-form narrative journalism.
Jeffrey RobinsonGUEST
which was John Hersey's Hiroshima.
Jeffrey RobinsonGUEST
In 1946, just 80 years ago, he went to Hiroshima and he interviewed, I think it was six people and followed six people through what happened from the time the bomb dropped and how their lives changed and what happened to them.
Jeffrey RobinsonGUEST
And he told the story of the bomb through these people and their stories.
Howard ZinnSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
That was my attitude at the moment.
Howard ZinnSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And then I read John Hersey's book about Hiroshima.
Howard ZinnSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And then it came home to me what that was.
Howard ZinnSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
He interviewed the survivors there.
1 more episode mentions John Hersey.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.