Amazon.com: Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon: P. D. Smith: Books

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Weaving together biography, science and art, Smith has created a compelling history of physics in the 20th century, focusing on the long-lasting search for ever more destructive weapons-from the development of chemical warfare in World War I Germany through the arms race of the Cold War. Explaining "why some of the most gifted and idealistic men of the twentieth century spent so much effort trying to destroy the planet," Smith's dynamic, riveting narrative reveals details of people, places and events that are rarely covered in textbooks, bringing to life not just scientists like Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard, but the horrors of chemical and atomic warfare. Time and again, "it seemed that a giant leap forward for science also meant a step backward for mankind," and contemporary film and fiction echoed this sentiment with "clear signs... of genuine resentment towards scientists for betraying the high ideals of their profession and, indeed, the best interests of humanity." Ironically, the goal of many of these scientists was peace, not war: "Many scientists were convinced that the terrible reality of atomic superweapons would force nations to resolve their disputes and work for world peace." Captivating and thoroughly referenced, this chronicle should interest a wide audience, from science and history buffs to armchair politicos.
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Review

“An impassioned account of everything from the discovery of radioactivity to plans for a Doomsday Device (yes, there really were such plans) from an author who feels that to the generations growing up who see the Cold War only as something in history books, the true horror of nuclear weapons has been forgotten... Doomsday Men is ... important, and, depressingly, there is a need for it – people, [especially younger people than me,] ought to read it”. – John Gribbin, The Literary Review

"Superb… The research is impressive, but it’s his eye for revealing anecdotes and his ability to distil it all into lively prose that makes this a real pleasure to read." - Sunday Business Post

“Doomsday Men doesn’t just deal with thermonuclear destruction. It’s a meticulous account of weapons of mass destruction and the science and scientists behind them. Indeed, it is two books for the price of one, because it is also a cultural disquisition. Smith scours fiction for visions of death rays and lurid imaginings of Armageddon to show how writers often preceded or influenced scientists. … always readable and entertaining … Smith deserves some sort of award for value for money”. – Tibor Fischer, Daily Telegraph

"...he puts the nuclear age into a new context, engagingly and even excitingly". - Financial Times

"Smith entertainingly takes on Dr. Doom and his colleagues, setting them in popular culture as scientific messiahs and madmen." – Times (London)

"A chillingly compelling history of chemical, biological and atomic superweapons...Doomsday Men analyzes dozens of examples of how culture influenced science in the devising of superweapons...it successfully shows how and why superweapons have been simultaneously admired and reviled by both scientists and the public". - Physics World

“Told largely from the viewpoint of the scientists devoted to turning the military’s demands into reality, PD Smith’s account is packed with striking anecdotes… this is a readable, informative work exploring why intelligent men worked on such insane projects”. - Metro

“Smith’s study is the gripping, untold story of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, which first came to public attention in 1950 when the Hungarian-born scientist Leo Szilard made a dramatic announcement on radio: science was on the verge of creating a Doomsday Bomb. For the first time in history, mankind would soon have the ability to destroy all life on the planet. The shockwave from this statement reverberated across the following decade and beyond.” - Times Literary Supplement

“… Doomsday Men is well worth reading. It is a powerful reminder that weapons of mass destruction are still ‘out there’ and new ones are being developed every day. But it is not solely about scientific knowledge; it ranges much wider than science fiction. It tells the story of disaster. One question is left hanging: will we allow our governments to repeat the mistakes of the last century?”- Independent

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Product Details

Hardcover: 576 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (December 10, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 031237397X
ISBN-13: 978-0312373979
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #319,967 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
The football stadium at the University of Chicago had not been used for three years. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
saviour scientist, scientific superweapon, atomic superweapon, atomic utopia, cobalt bomb, power beyond the dream, doomsday bomb, electromagnetic pump, new superweapon, neutron chain reaction, atomic chain reaction, explosive chain reaction, doomsday device

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Leo Szilard, World War, Manhattan Project, Los Alamos, New York, Fritz Haber, Edward Teller, United States, Soviet Union, Eugene Wigner, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Marie Curie, John Von Neumann, The Times, Frederick Soddy, Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford, The World Set Free, Met Lab, Peter George, Red Alert, James Chadwick, Russell Square

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	61% buy the item featured on this page: Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) $22.76
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding history of the cultural impact of superweapons , December 9, 2007

By	Paul Halpern "Physicist and Writer" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Doomsday Men is an impressively creative examination of how literature and philosophy influenced the development of superweapons, and how knowledge of their ghastly potential shaped, in turn, the cultural icons of the 20th century. It shows how those involved in the Manhattan Project differed greatly in their temperments and outlooks, and reached drastically different conclusions about the role of nuclear weapons after the Second World War was over. While some scientists, such as Leo Szilard, rallied for arms control, others, such as Herman Kahn, argued that the west should be prepared to accept massive casualties. Kahn's remarks, taken to their terrifying extreme, were incorporated into Kubrick's classic dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove, a film that occupies a central place in this book. Through colorful anecdotes and fascinating connections with popular culture, Smith helps bring the turbulent history of those frightening times to life. Doomsday Men offers a vital and intruging account of the mentality and culture of the Cold War.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Out of the libraries come the killers." - - Bertolt Brecht, "1940", January 26, 2008

By	Found Highways (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

In Brecht's "1940," the "latest inventions of the professors" probably didn't include the atomic bomb. Poison gas and rockets meant to kill civilians were horrific enough. But one of the surprising things (to me, at least) that P. D. Smith's Doomsday Men shows is how newspapers and popular science writing in Europe and America described atomic bombs and atomic power plants in detail decades before Hiroshima.

Another interesting thing in Doomsday Men is how fiction writers and scientists inspired each other. Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895 and the next year H. G. Wells used "Roentgen vibrations" as the rationale for the Invisible Man's experiments. (Wells was the first to use the expression "atomic bomb.")

American science fiction magazines published stories about atomic energy years before Pearl Harbor.

In Germany Zukunftsromane ("future novels") and Weltuntergangsromane ("end-of-the-world stories") were popular. These stories influenced German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and Hungarian physicists Leo Szilard and Edward Teller, two of the "Hungarian Quartet" that Doomsday Men is primarily about. Most of the best nuclear scientists in Berlin were Jewish and left Germany in the 1930s for Britain or the United States.

Fritz Haber, was an ultra-patriotic German-Jewish scientist who developed poison gas during World War I without any qualms. (After the Nazis took power, when Haber was a refuge in England, Ernest Rutherford refused to meet Haber, saying " 'he did not want to shake hands with the inventor of poison gas warfare.' ") Many of Haber's family were killed by Zyklon B gas at Auschwitz.

As the truth about the effects of atomic bombs and atomic testing became known, a new kind of story replaced the old pro-technology-at-any-cost stories in American science fiction magazines (where you rarely read about a Faust or a Frankenstein). Actually, it was a return to an older type of story.

Movies like Godzilla, Them!, The Amazing Colossal Man, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms were a return to the "deadly utopian dream" of turn-of-the-century fiction like H. G. Wells's The World Set Free or The War of the Worlds.

By the time of the modern era of ICBMs and hotlines, the tragic figure of Goethe's Faust had become Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, an amalgam of von Braun, Edward Teller, and others, who could only be comprehended as a joke, even though the joke was we're doomed.

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