Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (Paperback)

by Robert Jungk (Author) "It is said that during the last year of the First World War Ernest Rutherford, already famous for his work on atomic research, failed to..." (more)
Key Phrases: other atomic scientists, atomic experts, uranium problem, Los Alamos, United States, Soviet Union (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An account of the remarkable scientists who discovered that nuclear fission was possible and then became concerned about its implications. Index. Translated by James Cleugh.

About the Author

Robert Jungk was born in 1913 in Berlin, emigrated to Paris in 1933, where he made documentary films and studied at the Sorbonne, lived in Prague from 1936-38 where he published an anti-fascist paper, and then fled to Switzerland when the Nazis entered Prague, staying there until 1945. Then, as a freelance journalist, he worked for several papers including The Observer of London, for which he covered the Nuremberg Trials.

During the 1950s he began to explore the themes which dominated the rest of his life: the future, and peace and anti-nuclear activity. His first book was entitled The Future Has Already Begun, and in 1953 he founded the first Institute for Research into the Future.

By the 1960s Robert Jungk was known around the world and was much in demand as a speaker on global issues. He worked with Bertrand Russel on anti-nuclear campaigns; with Johan Galtung he co-founded the International Conference on Futurism in 1967, out of which he emerged the World Federation for Future Research. He began to develop Future Workshops, in which people envisioned desirable futures and the means of achieving them, as a way of regaining power over their own lives. Then in 1987 he founded the International Futures Library in Salzburg, the first public library specialising in the collection, inter-disciplinary networking and distribution of future-oriented information.

A similar blend of scholarship and activism characterised his peace initiatives. His book Brighter than a Thousand Suns was followed by several others on the nuclear theme, including The Nuclear State in 1978. At the same time, Jungk was deeply involved in the peace movement, lecturing and participating in marches and demonstrations. In 1992, he stood as the candidate of the Green Party in Austria's presidential elections.

Following Robert Jungk's death in Salzburg in July 1994, the International Futures Library is continuing its work in the spirit of his efforts, including the production of the quarterly bulletin Pro Zukunft (For the Future), which he started in 1987.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harvest Books (October 21, 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156141507
• ISBN-13: 978-0156141505
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #271,847 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The first good historical picture of the Manhatten Project, May 5, 1999

By	Stephen M. St Onge "Stephen M. St. Onge" (Mpls, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Robert Jungk went to a lot of trouble to interview as many people as possible who'd worked on the A-bomb, and produced this well written history of the Manhatten Project. It's a bit dated, but if I had to recommend three books on this subject, this would be one of them (the others would be Richard Rhode's THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB and Lillian Hoddeson's CRITICAL ASSEMBLY). There's interesting information in here I haven't read anywhere else, and I've read over a dozen books on the Manhatten Project.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Light from a different direction!, July 16, 2006

By	Palle E T Jorgensen "Palle Jorgensen" (Iowa City, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Recently, in theatres in London and New York, the public was treated to the drama "Copenhagen," by British playwright Michael Frayn, and it revisited the theme of this now old book. The play was about a visit in September 1941 by the then young German physicist Werner Heisenberg to his mentor and dear friend Niels Bohr in Nazi-occupied Denmark. So a detail in a bigger picture, but still a key detail!

The wider subject of Robert Jungk's book is a biographical sketch of the pioneers in nuclear physics, the individual scientist who built the atomic bomb (the time before Hiroshima and Nagasaki), or whose theories were instrumental. The debate about the history, the science, and its implications of the nuclear bomb started after World War II, and it is important to remember that nuclear scientists worked on both sides of this conflicts. Now with hindsight, the Cold War, and nuclear proliferation have taken centre stage, but back in 1956 when Robert Jungk's book first appeared, World War II was still casting a big shadow on events and on the debate about nuclear deterrence. In my opinion Robert Jungk's book was one of the first serious attempts at a general account on what was clearly a watershed in history, a series of events that are shaping our lives even today. Since 1956, Robert Jungk's book was reprinted many times, and many more related books appeared.

Jungk's book is interesting in that it paints a vivid portrait of such scientists as Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and other leading physicists at the time, and on both sides of that conflict.

What is interesting now is to view Robert Jungk's book in the light of Michael Frayn's play, and especially in light of newly released papers on the Niels Bohr archives in 2002, following the wide attention given to Michael Frayn's version of the 1941 meeting in Copenhagen. The 2002 addition to Niels Bohr's archives is a deposit comprising documents either dictated or written by Niels Bohr referring to what was said at the fateful 1941 meeting.

Michael Frayn's play makes it clear that the two Bohr and Heisenberg were very close both scientifically and personally, and that the 1941 meeting changed all of that. Both men were devastated!

Heisenberg was a leading scientific advisor to the German government in post WWII Europe; and yet he spent the rest of his life attempting to put his spin on his war work; his work on a nuclear bomb for Hitler, or perhaps rather denying these efforts. Niels Bohr who died in 1962 had been extraordinarily tight lipped about his meeting with Heisenberg in 1941. So while the newly released letters supplement and confirm previously published statements of Bohr's recollections of the meeting, especially those of his son, Aage Bohr, this part of the story is not well known, and especially not to Robert Jungk. The letters are from Niels Bohr to Heisenberg, and they are interesting for many reasons, not least of which is that they were never mailed, and so their contents were never known to Heisenbrg. Quoting from one of Bohr's letters to Heisenberg: "--- I think that I owe it to you to tell you that I am greatly amazed to see how much your memory has deceived you in your letter to the author [Robert Jungk] of the book ["Brighter than a thousand suns"],---." Review by Palle Jorgensen, July 2006.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Serious book about science that reads like a thriller, November 16, 1999

By A Customer

An extraordinary book. The story of the University in a small town of Goettingen, and the amazing characters who gravitate there to learn physics. This part on its own, prior to the Manhatten project is an exciting reading. Both the atmosphere of the German University and the characters of the students, inluding the "fathers" of nuclear and thermonuclear bombs, Oppenheimer and Teller, are very well described and vivid. Easy and interesting description of the foundations of physics behind the nuclear weapons. Actually that was my favorite part. The story of the Manhatten project is done very well. The book was powerful enough to affect me to become a physisist - 35 years ago. I am happy to see that it is still in print. Good reading for any age, but especially highly recommended for those who are chosing a profession and are too bright to go to a Medical School.