The Making of the Atomic Bomb [Paperback]

Richard Rhodes (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 1, 1995

With a new Introduction by the author, the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning epic about how the atomic bomb came to be.

In rich, human, political, and scientific detail, here is the complete story of the nuclear bomb.

Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly--or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began merely as an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers--Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and von Neumann--stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.

Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step-by-step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man's most awesome discovery and invention. "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is at once a narrative tour de force and a document as powerful as its subject.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If the first 270 pages of this book had been published separately, they would have made up a lively, insightful, beautifully written history of theoretical physics and the men and women who plumbed the mysteries of the atom. Along with the following 600 pages, they become a sweeping epic, filled with terror and pity, of the ultimate scientific quest: the development of the ultimate weapon. Rhodes is a peerless explainer of difficult concepts; he is even better at chronicling the personalities who made the discoveries that led to the Bomb. Niels Bohr dominates the first half of the book as J. Robert Oppenheimer does the second; both men were gifted philosophers of science as well as brilliant physicists. The central irony of this book, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, is that the greatest minds of the century contributed to the greatest destructive force in history.

From Publishers Weekly

This winner of the NBCC, NBA and Pulitzer prizes is being published to coincide with the 50th anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the hardcover publication of Rhodes's new book, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 928 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684813785
• ISBN-13: 978-0684813783
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.7 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (242 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Nuclear Physics > Atomic & Nuclear Physics
  • #35 in Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Nuclear
  • #58 in Books > History > Military > Weapons & Warfare > Nuclear

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 95 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Changes Everything October 2, 2000

By Capt Kirk

Format:Paperback

I will echo the other reviewers: this is one of the best, if not the best book I have read.

The book covers the subect on a number of levels. First is the factual story of the events leading up to the making of the bomb, which in themselves would be fascinating. For example, the fact that in two years the Manhattan Project built an industrial plant larger than the US automobile manufacturing base. That only in December of 1938 was the fission of Uranium first discovered, but the course of events were so rapid as to lead to the Trinity test in July of 1945. As a sometime program manager, but no General Groves, it was a fascinating account of the world's most significant projecct.

The second level is a very enjoyable history of nuclear physics as the reader is lead through the discovery process from the turn of the century to thermonuclear fusion. That discovery process is the vehicle for the third and fourth levels of the book. The stories and personalities of the scientists, around the world, who added to that knowledge, what shaped and motivated their lives and how they indiviually gained insight, brilliant insight, into the riddle that was physics. I felt I got to know people like Rutherford, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Szilard, and Teller. The fourth level was that the insight was not really individual but collaborative. This book is one of the finest descriptions of the scientific process and how this open, collaborative and communicative process works across boundaries.

The last level, the biggest surprise and the most profoundly unsettling, was the realization of how this event, inevitable, has "changed everything" about human history - an appreciation, I believe 55 years later, we who did not participate in the Manhattan Project, have yet to fully realize.... Niels Bohr realized it in an instant.

The book is superbly written. The personalies came alive, I felt I knew Niels Bohr. It was absolutely suspenseful even though you know the ending (you don't really). I was caught up in the story as though it were a novel. After reading late the night before, one evening I came home and declared to my wife "They dropped the bomb!". Such was the intensity of my participation in the book that my voice had excitement to it. She was horrified. I had to explain, "No, no. In the book. On Hiroshima". When history is that exciting it is hard to beat.

This is one of only a few books about which I can say that I will never quite view the world the same again.

A masterpiece and a must read. Read more ›

125 of 130 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars required reading - AND utterly captivating December 16, 1999

By Hans U. Widmaier

Format:Paperback

Everyone seeking to understand the 20th century, its history, its politics, its scientific development, must read this book. Not only does it illuminate one of the foundational events of our time far better than any other source, it definitively sets forth modern science, its ethical dilemmas, its odd combination of unbelievable explanatory power and the utterly (humanly) unfathomable reality science suggests. Rhodes traces the development of the atomic bomb to its scientific roots, which he demonstrates are inextricably intertwined with the people pushing the scientific developments at an ever increasing speed and for a long time had no idea of the potential their theories carried. Rhodes manages to do all this with complete lucidity, allowing the reader totally unfamiliar with quantum mechanics to follow along with reasonable comprehension. At the same time, the psychological, ethical and political dramas Rhodes describes make this the hands-down most thrilling, most exciting book I have ever read

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Historical Account Of Etiology of First Atomic Bomb! January 8, 2004

By Barron Laycock HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

One of the most admirable qualities of this truly marvelous work is its ability to paint the story of the creation of the first atomic weapon on the broadest possible canvas, reaching back into the bowels of history to trace, with the fidelity of a seismographic needle, the rise of both the specific intellectuals as well as the critical scientific mass to make the work not only conceivable, but possible. This is indeed a work that one reads repeatedly, for there is so much to digest within the pages of this masterwork as to defy any easy such description. So both the cast of involved personalities is long and incredibly interesting to witness as the author develops it, but then again, so is his description of the rise of theoretical physics through the work of Albert Einstein and his colleagues within the mostly European academic orbit in the first third of the twentieth century. In that sense, it is not strictly speaking, merely a detailed exposition dealing with what happened in New Mexico under incredibly secret circumstances during World War Two, as the Manhattan Project, even though it eventually gravitates toward being exactly that.

Instead, the book opens as an exploration into the minds of some brilliantly eccentric professors and intellectuals struggling within theoretical physics on the very cutting edge of the unknown, and then stretching it in quite unsuspected and revolutionary ways. And as the critical mass of theoretical knowledge began to cluster within the fairly small community of like-minded souls, the scene changes based on world politics and the rise of fascism.... It is an interesting curiosity that had Hitler been less vitriolic in his condemnation of Jews, he might have forestalled the emigration of critical players in this unfolding melodrama, and so might have altered his own destiny and that of his most important ally, Japan. For just as the kluge of intellectuals conceded that such a weapon was indeed theoretically possible and feasible, many of them began to flee to more hospitable environs, including both the USA and Britain. Without their help, it is questionable as to whether the Manhattan Project could have ever succeeded.

The author is also quite convincing in his take concerning the long-rumored notion that the Nazis were also rushing toward development of the bomb, which Rhodes believes to be unsubstantiated by the available evidence. In fact, he argues exactly the opposite, that the Nazis were neither very interested in the development of such a weapon, and did not enjoy sufficient access to the kinds of materials they would have needed to mount a serious developmental nuclear program. Yet the majority of the book focuses memorably on the events transpiring in and around Los Alamos. The program to develop a useable atomic bomb was so massive and so secret that it is hard to imagine its scope at the time. Rhodes' prose admirably supports his sometimes almost confessional style, and he writes well enough to interest us in the most prosaic description even as he is describing events and people who literally transformed the world. This book has an incredible panorama to its rather ambitious scope, which includes biographical, scientific, sociological, political, and economic elements to it. It is indeed a classic, and deserves its status as one of the best-written accounts of the events of World War Two yet published. Enjoy! Read more ›

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars absolutely first rate scientific and political history September 28, 2001

By Robert J. Crawford TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

This is one of those books that has it all: fascinating personalities, fundamental scientific discoveries explained with utter clarity, and the birth of political issues that are as relevant today as they were 60 years ago. That it is almost certainly the best book on the development of the atomic bomb is in itself remarkable, as the field is already crowded with mediocre efforts. Rhodes makes an entire era - the first half of the 20th Century - come alive in exacting detail.

THe book starts with a ruminating Leo Szilard as he wanders the streets of London, with the concept of an atom bomb germinating in his mind. His pesonality is so quirky, his propensity to find just the right contact to advance his agenda, make him the ideal vehicle to follow the story of the harnessing of the atom for military purpose. But to offer a full view, Rhodes starts with the Curies and their milieu, when they discovered radiation - a fundamental new form of energy that could not be explained by chemistry - that was the start of the 20C revolution in physics. Not only does this story cover such luminaries as Einstein and Bohr, but it includes many others lesser known, who added their discoveries to the pieces of the puzzle that finally elucidated the structure of the atom. These developments are also brilliantly set in European and American history, where the rise of Nazism renders them frighteningly relevant. In addition, other issues are addressed, such as the reason for the sudden blossomng of several Hungarian geniuses, including Szilard and von Neumann, who left their homeland for the US.

Then Rhodes moves to the practical question of the Bomb's development, which was accomplished predominently by European scientists in exile and some remarkable Americans as well.... Here, you witness Enrico Fermi as he creates the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction in CHicago; the flowering of Oppenheimer's genius for administration; and the efforts that Heisenburg led, and perhaps sabotaged, in Nazi Germany. Each personality is given the depth you would expect in a historical novel with adventure, such as Bohr's flight from Norway, and the infighting that went on behind the scenes. It is simply a masterpiece of historical reporting.

Though his output has covered many topics, from his personal sexual history to hard scientific topics, Rhodes is indisputably one of America's greatest writers. I was fascinated by this book from page one and even took vacation time so that I could read it in peace while my daughter was in school.

Highest recommendation. Read more ›