The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition

This sweeping account begins within the 19th century, with the invention of nuclear fission, and continues to World War Two and the Americans’ race to overcome Hitler’s Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated within the fateful dropping of the primary bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Reading like a character-driven suspense novel, the book introduces the players on this saga of physics, politics, and human psychology—from FDR and Einstein to the visionary scientists who pioneered quantum theory and the application of thermonuclear fission, including Planck, Szilard, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, Meitner, von Neumann, and Lawrence.

From nuclear power’s earliest foreshadowing within the work of H.G. Wells to the brilliant glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War, this dread invention eternally changed the course of human history, and The Making of The Atomic Bomb provides a panoramic backdrop for that story.

Richard Rhodes’s ability to craft compelling biographical portraits is matched only by his rigorous scholarship. Told in wealthy human, political, and scientific detail that any reader can follow, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful work.