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Walter Edgar's Journal

Empire of Ashes

By Walter Edgar

Published August 7, 2026 at 5:30 AM EDT

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The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.

This week we’ll be talking with Charleston author James M. Scott, author of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War (2026, W.W. Norton & Company). With startling immediacy, Empire of Ashes illuminates the moral dilemma at the center of America’s decision to inflict total war upon Japan.

A thorough historian and a talented writer Scott brings to life the struggles – moral, scientific, and practical - faced by the Truman administration in the closing days of World War II.

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Walter Edgar

Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.

See stories by Walter Edgar