Customer Reviews

A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance

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To the above post, I would reply that to leave the reader asking questions is not a shortcoming at all. Rather, continually questioning and revising conclusions is what historical study is all about. The first mark of a good historian is the ability to ask the right questions--and this task is not nearly as easy as it may seem, as evidenced by the plethora of bad histories out there. And that a historian succeeds in prompting and inspiring the reader to ask his or her own questions after putting down the book can only be considered an exceptional quality. I would seriously question any historian who claimed to have all the complete answers to all of his or her questions.

A World Destroyed is a very good accounting of the United States's building of the first atomic bombs, with a great emphasis on the diplomatic and political players, rather than the scientists. The author has updated the book to include the latest possible historical information from recently (book was printed in 1977) declassified material. Sherwin's major shortcoming is his ability to leave the reader asking even more questions than he started with. However, it is still worth reading for those who want to know more about such a revolutionary invention than you learn in high school.