Name: The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Rating: 4.583333333333333 (24 reviews)

Richard Rhodes

Richard Lee Rhodes

Richard. (Nuclear). Rhodes

Traces the development of the atomic bomb from Leo Szilard's concept through the drama of the race to build a workable device to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Traces the development of the atomic bomb from Leo Szilard's concept through the drama of the race to build a workable device to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima.

25th Anniversary Edition

Mrigank

I always imagined physicist as awkward individuals holed up somewhere in seclusion where they could peer into the space time fabric in peace conjuring seemingly impossible formulas that has little relevance . This book has exposed me to the profoundness of their thoughts and the importance of physics on the modern world .

This is how history should be written. 
This book is not a monotonously bland narration of events that lead to the atomic bomb. It is about how an innocuous speculation of mere existence of nuclear energy under vile pressure of world war compelled the most brilliant minds of the era into creating the most destructive weapon in the human history. This book is more about the scientists, their discoveries and philosophies than about the bomb. Every facet from science to geopolitics has been aptly covered. A must read for every curious mind.

The definitive history of nuclear weapons and the Manhattan Project. From the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan, Richard Rhodes’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb.

This sweeping account begins in the 19th century, with the discovery of nuclear fission, and continues to World War Two and the Americans’ race to beat Hitler’s Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated in the fateful dropping of the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Reading like a character-driven suspense novel, the book introduces the players in this saga of physics, politics, and human psychology—from FDR and Einstein to the visionary scientists who pioneered quantum theory and the application of thermonuclear fission, including Planck, Szilard, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, Meitner, von Neumann, and Lawrence.

From nuclear power’s earliest foreshadowing in the work of H.G. Wells to the bright glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War, this dread invention forever changed the course of human history, and The Making of The Atomic Bomb provides a panoramic backdrop for that story.

Richard Rhodes’s ability to craft compelling biographical portraits is matched only by his rigorous scholarship. Told in rich human, political, and scientific detail that any reader can follow, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful work.

When I was writing a documentary about all things nuclear for the History Channel, I used this book at my primary reference. Fascinating stories and excellent reporting. 

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

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