Seventy-five years ago today — Aug. 16, 1945, was a Thursday — Japan was as near dead as a living nation has ever been.
The war was over. Now what?
Chaos, ruin, numbness, despair. The facts are familiar. Descriptions abound. Here’s one, chosen more or less at random. It’s from a short story titled “The Idiot” (1946) by Ango Sakaguchi (1906-55). It describes the last days of the war: