The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite by Ann Finkbeiner  (9)
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Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
A thorough, sometimes unsettling look at the culture of nuclear science. Famed for its role in the development of the atomic bomb, Los Alamos is today a little-visited town not far from Santa Fe. In New Mexico, writes journalist and first-time author Shroyer, the town is an anomaly--a predominantly white society in the midst of a multicultural state that is mainly Hispanic and Native American. With millions upon millions of federal dollars supporting it, Los Alamos is also an island of wealth in a poor state, inhabited by well-educated, civic-minded civil servants whose business happens to be mass destruction. That business is changing, writes Shroyer; Los Alamos scientists now cooperate with Russian scientists to make sure that no other party develops nuclear weapons, a matter of stuffing the genie back into the bottle. The collapse of the Soviet Union has made the world not safer but more dangerous, she observes, inasmuch as destructive technology is now leaving the former republics for armories in Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries. Her look at the people in charge of seeing that these countries do not drop the big one is illuminating, and it puts a comprehensible face on a mind-boggling science that has inspired profound fear for generations. (One expert admitted to Shroyer that he was surprisingly frightened the first time he walked into the plutonium facility at Los Alamos.) Shroyer's reports are not always reassuring. For one thing, some residents of Los Alamos suffer from various cancers that can be attributed to radiation. For another, the technology is imperfect; as one scientist puts it, ``A cosmic ray can go through and flip a bit in the computer so that you get a completely screwball answer.'' All this doesn't seem to bother the residents of Los Alamos overmuch; after all, the local oldies' radio station, K-BOM, carries the slogan ``We're radio-active!'' A solid piece of reporting on a little-viewed corner of national life. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Readers will be "pleased with Jo Ann Shroyer's book about the nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, which is spiced with striking anecdotes of...scientists' eccentricity and dark humor."—Science
A thorough, sometimes unsettling look at the culture of nuclear science. Famed for its role in the development of the atomic bomb, Los Alamos is today a little-visited town not far from Santa Fe. In New Mexico, writes journalist and first-time author Shroyer, the town is an anomaly--a predominantly white society in the midst of a multicultural state that is mainly Hispanic and Native American. With millions upon millions of federal dollars supporting it, Los Alamos is also an island of wealth in a poor state, inhabited by well-educated, civic-minded civil servants whose business happens to be mass destruction. That business is changing, writes Shroyer; Los Alamos scientists now cooperate with Russian scientists to make sure that no other party develops nuclear weapons, a matter of stuffing the genie back into the bottle. The collapse of the Soviet Union has made the world not safer but more dangerous, she observes, inasmuch as destructive technology is now leaving the former republics for armories in Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries. Her look at the people in charge of seeing that these countries do not drop the big one is illuminating, and it puts a comprehensible face on a mind-boggling science that has inspired profound fear for generations. (One expert admitted to Shroyer that he was surprisingly frightened the first time he walked into the plutonium facility at Los Alamos.) Shroyer's reports are not always reassuring. For one thing, some residents of Los Alamos suffer from various cancers that can be attributed to radiation. For another, the technology is imperfect; as one scientist puts it, ``A cosmic ray can go through and flip a bit in the computer so that you get a completely screwball answer.'' All this doesn't seem to bother the residents of Los Alamos overmuch; after all, the local oldies' radio station, K-BOM, carries the slogan ``We're radio-active!'' A solid piece of reporting on a little-viewed corner of national life. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Readers will be "pleased with Jo Ann Shroyer's book about the nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, which is spiced with striking anecdotes of...scientists' eccentricity and dark humor."—Science
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Inside This Book Citations: This book cites 20 books | 2 books that cite this book Explore: Citations | Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Key Phrases - SIPs: plutonium injection studies, human radiation studies, proliferant countries, surplus plutonium, weapons community (more) Key Phrases - CAPs: United States, Cold War, Manhattan Project, Soviet Union, New Mexico (more) Browse Sample Pages: Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | |