People tend to conflate some of the issues around the surrender for various reasons. The quick and dirty facts are that the surrender was unconditional and nothing short of complete acceptance of the allied occupation and creation of a post war constitution was going to fly. Now, the issue of the emperor was a little opaque. McArthur could have removed him day one, and that’s what Hirohito expected to happen, but McArthur decided he’d be better off with him at the head of a constitutional monarchy but he did require him to formally renounce his divinity in Jan. of 1946.

Prior to the formal surrender acceptance the Japanese had been steadfast that the emperor would remain, and remain divine.

The safe, swift and mostly violence free immediate landing of troops on Japan was an amazing result after such a brutal war.

The best single volume (short) on this is Ronald Henkoff’s Inferno. In short, nothing short of unconditional surrender was acceptable to the US, and every offer from the Japanese prior to accepting the US’s position that the emperor renounce his divinity was off the table. There were even a couple of coup attempts after the 2nd bomb was dropped. Ultimately the emperor himself recorded his acceptance of the terms of surrender and that was broadcast to the country. Henkoff’s book is easily read in an afternoon and then if you want to dig further you’ll have a pretty solid base of knowledge.

For a quick jump into literally everything, Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is great.

If you want the full PHD in human history Will and Ariel Durant’s multi volume The Story of Civilization is wonderful. A bit dated, but it’s bedrock in history. You can find complete sets for reasonable money.

The podcast The RFK Tapes might pique your interest. Not European but some very interesting incongruous circumstances.

Have you read Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi? It’s massive, but I’m working my way though it at the moment and it’s really good. I’m still not convinced that a SS agent didn’t accidentally shot JFK in the confusion, but Bugliosi goes through the timeline and all the attendant conspiracies in great detail.

On a bit of a tangent, there is a great BBC podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon that uses the final 13 minutes of the moon landing to go over all the technology etc that had to be developed to make that 13 minutes happen. The episode on the flight computer was fascinating. The code was hard wired literally on wires that were then wound/knitted to form the memory core.

I’m sure I’ve massively messed up the simple explanation, but based on the Q I think you’d enjoy the podcast, at least that episode.