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“Excellent historic read.”
Richard Bitting wrote this review Wednesday, July 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I am going to see the Trinity site on Monday, the 20th - hopefully. I won't have finished reading this book by then, but I will keep on plugging through it!”
Diane C wrote this review Friday, April 17 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“i am really interestin in reading this book because we are in a lesson about nuclear weapons etc. well i would really like to know more about nuclear bombs”
adan n wrote this review Friday, April 3 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This was a fascinating book about the atomic bomb. The first part about the frantic rush to make the bomb, and the interesting scientists that were involved. Also, I was shocked to find out that Truman didn't want to have to read a long document about the bomb, and they had to give him a synopsis, 49 pages if I remember correctly (I read this twenty years ago) and even that, he said, was too long! He was the president! This was the first nuclear bomb! And he couldn't read a detailed report about it - amazing!”
moik wrote this review Monday, January 19 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Overview: Editorial Review.
The Literary Hammer wrote this review Thursday, January 8 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Here for the first time, in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan.
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 as merely 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 yon 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" has been compared in its sweep and importance to William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". It is at once a narrative tour de force and a document as powerful as its subject.
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“Full disclosure: I've read a lot of nuclear weapons science and history, and even wrote a paper on nukes for a technical writing class. But I'm no scientist, in fact I barely passed high school physics. The point is that you will probably enjoy this book more if you are scientifically literate, but you don't have the grasp quantum physics to follow the science.
OC WRITER wrote this review Thursday, December 25 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Rhodes has written not just the best account of the Manhattan Project, but one of the best nonfiction books I've read. Dark Sun, the sequel about the H-bomb, lacks the urgency behind building a weapon to (arguably) end a war.
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“This is a good book, with lots of details and those anecdotes about scientists and science that make such a book really interesting. This book is also more balanced in its judgment about the German atomic bomb project. While earlier books always claimed that German scientists were very close to making an A-bomb but did not do it because they did not support Hitler, this book points out that, in fact, quite a few German scientists were indeed supportive of Hitler but were not close enough to making an atomic bomb.
bhoyhin wrote this review Thursday, November 6 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
But it is still just a three star for me. The main reason being the glaring absence of Louis Slotin and his accident at Los Alamos; and nothing but a passing mention of Klaus Fuchs. In my opinion, any history of atomic bomb without Klaus Fuchs and his views is weak, and any history of atomic bomb without Louis Slotin is simply incomplete.
”0 of 1 members found this review helpful“My favorite book of all time.”
Matthew Lewis wrote this review Saturday, October 18 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“An absoulte must read for anyone interested in science and history. ”
Brad wrote this review Thursday, April 17 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
