The Making Of The Atomic Bomb Paperback – 5 July 2012

It would have been easy for RIchard Rhodes to write an easygoing, mass-market, 300-page history of the Atomic Bomb. Starting with the Manhattan Project, glossing over the science and skipping ahead to the tests and then dropping the two bombs on Japan, it would be a quick read and a popular book.Rhodes doesn't do that, and his readers are much better off for it. In The Making of the Atomic Bomb, instead, he provides a detailed account of the different threads that led to the creation of the bomb. He talks about the scientists who created the bomb and their journeys from (largely) central and eastern Europe to (eventually) Los Alamos in the United States. Anti-semitism, Nazism, and War drove them westwards, while their own curiosity and the global, cooperative Republic of knowledge gives them the tools to make the bomb.Rhodes is both detailed and accessible with the science. He trusts the reader to understand what's going on, and he does a good job of helping the reader to navigate the neutrons and the alpha particles and work their way to a place where the difference between U238 and U235 feels easy and natural.The politics is very much the third narrative, given less prominence than the science or the scientists, but nonetheless Rhodes gives it all due attention. The major players, Roosevelt and Churchill especially, and the various go betweens that connected their governments with the scientists, are all present in the narrative. The Second World War itself is obviously vital, and Rhodes returns to it periodically to aid understanding of the urgency and priorities driving the project. On the bomb's eventual use, he allows witness testimony to do most of the talking. The accounts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki are horrifying, and the statistics on the number of dead and injured are unfathomable. Rhodes covers the debate among the scientists about how the post-Atomic world of weaponry should be managed (international control, treaties etc) and suggests, perhaps optimistically, that the Cold War standoff might have been avoided if information had been shared more openly at an earlier stage.In any case, the reader cannot help but be fascinated and informed by this monumental work. Highly recommended.

The title of Richard Rhodes' excellent book really does not do justice to the full scope of this work. Here we have a history of nuclear physics beginning back in the 19th Century. One may say that Mr. Rhodes is simply laying the foundations for the main story, but they are pretty extensive and robust foundations for all that. His construction will not crumble any time soon, nor is it likely to be demolished for something more solid.Not only do we get the nuclear physics background but also a very creditable and concise account of the social and political environment in the decades leading up to the Second World War - completely relevant of course because it was so important in the formation of the lead characters in this fascinating story as well as creating the impetus to develop the Bomb during the war years themselves.If I have any gripe at all with this book it is that the main narrative - the rapidly developing nuclear physics - was so enthralling that the frequent digression into biography as the key players came into view had me champing at the bit in frustration and, yes I am ashamed to admit, occasionally had me skipping ahead.

I have three hard copies of this book and have read it about six times, it's a great read! The history and technical aspect are pitched at an non-expert level although a little understanding of physics and chemistry would help the reader. It is broad in its scope and well constructed in its approach, the detail is outstanding. It in no way tries to preach, indeed the author sits very much on the fence with regard to the ethics of its use and puts the decisions made within the issues pertinent at the time. The key roles of Leo Szilard and Leslie Groves, so often overlooked by other writers, is explained in full. It's a good historical reference for an important event in world history. I was so pleased you can now get this on Kindle.

This is the definitive history not just of the Atom Bomb but of all the physic of fissionable elements over the previous 100 years that led to it. It is very thorough, perhaps even a bit too thorough in places. But it always remains readable and you get a very good sense of how lots of physicists were really feeling their way towards understanding fission in the 1930s & 1940s. It is also excellent at giving a balanced view of world events - both the Nazis and the Japanese were doing their own research. If Hitler had got there first and used the bomb maybe we'd all be part of the Greater Nazi German Empire now... It doesn't bear thinking about.My other complaint is that the paperback book is physically too big & heavy (at 838 pages) to be easily read when on public transport, in the bath etc. I actually cut mine in two with a sharp knife and now it's much better. It should have been sold in 2 volumes for ease of reading. Maybe the hardback was, I don't know...

Amazing book. Lots of info and photos. Ideally would recommend reading with a bit background of physics and chemestry. Great value at low price. Recommended.

I read a lot of reviews of this book before buying. Most of the criticism seems to centre on the 300 pages before getting into the actual Los Alomos programme. Yet, I have loved it (I am halfway through). It takes us from Einstein’s first works in relativity through each of the characters (too many to mention) and discoveries that, drip by drip, gave us the physics of the atomic bomb. The author centres the work on the characters, rather than the technology in a way that keeps the story human and engaging. Yet, as an engineer who has dabbled in the nuclear field over the past 30 years the technical details have allowed me to join many dots in my incomplete understanding of the world - it has also had me reaching for all sorts of old text books and tables that have not been opened in years to confirm some point or other mentioned in the text. I could not recommend it more highly.