Twenty-five years after its initial publication; The Making of the Atomic Bomb remains the definitive history of nuclear weapons and the Manhattan Project. From the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan; Richard Rhodes’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book details the science; the people; and the socio-political realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb.This sweeping account begins in the 19th century; with the discovery of nuclear fission; and continues to World War Two and the Americans’ race to beat Hitler’s Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated in the fateful dropping of the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Reading like a character-driven suspense novel; the book introduces the players in 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 in the work of H.G. Wells to the bright glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War; this dread invention forever 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 rich human; political; and scientific detail that any reader can follow; The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful work.
#1243831 in Books Coronet 2015-10-27 2015-10-27Original language:English 9.25 x 1.00 x 6.00l; .98 #File Name: 1444778064320 pagesCoronet
Review
33 of 33 people found the following review helpful. There are some really excellent lessons here in looking at a highly developed nation ...By vincit veritasMr. Mcdonough has written a view of the mind set that underpinned the Gestapo and the SS and the Nazi leadership. There are some really excellent lessons here in looking at a highly developed nation with a great history can be controlled by group of not only thugs but highly educated people who one would expect some degree of critical thinking; but alas we find they fall short. If you read this with the idea of how this applies today; I think you will find some questions in your mind that giving the government more and more power; you will soon find that it has all the power and you have none. My aunt spent two years going to school in Munich during 1937 and 1938. She was staying with her in-laws in a five story apartment. Their apartment was on the fourth floor. She was watching a Nazi torch light parade out of the apartment window and she turned to her mother-in-law and asked why the German people put with this nonsense. Her mother-in-law turned white and said. "Don't say another word. The people upstairs are good party members." Her mother-in-law knew the consequences of expressing such thoughts. It is a very good read.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Chilling Study of a Totalitarian Police StateBy Hans RigelmanThis book shows proof that an organization rotten at the top will be rotten all the way through. Ultimately Hitler and his staff were responsible for why the Gestapo was created and what it became.28 of 28 people found the following review helpful. McDonough's outstanding masterpieceBy Jakob KnabTo be painstakingly precise: This is a book about the Gestapo; not about the SS. The photo on the title page shows a group of Jewish people captured and forcibly pulled out from their dugouts during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. A SS soldier points his submachine gun at a child raising his hands. The photo is taken from a report by the SS to Heinrich Himmler; stating; "The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence.†To the very day this photo is the very image of the cruel and evil Nazi regime; it has left an indelible mark on our cultural memory. (A note to the publisher: It was the SS; not the Gestapo that had destroyed the Warsaw ghetto. Himmler was the Minister of the Interior; the Chief of German Police as well as the Chief of the Gestapo (Secret State Police) and the Chief (Reichsfuehrer) of the SS.)It is true; “chilling†is the key word: McDonough’s profound and fascinating account of The Gestapo provides a new doorway into the everyday life of the Third Reich and gives powerful testimony from the victims of Nazi terror.McDonough is extremely good and knowledgable when it comes to illuminating motives of religious opposition to the Nazi regime. Research into resistance is about motives; scope and action. Hardly any reader will know that the devoted Catholic Stauffenberg had visited the Rosenkranzkirche (church of the rosary) in Berlin on the evening before his assassination attempt.McDonought pays tribute to Bishop von Galen and his powerful sermons. After Bishop von Galen’s outburst on the Nazi regime decided to scale down its killing of handicapped people.I found the story of Helmut Hesse; a pastor belonging to the Confessing Church; particularly poignant. This radical Christian was arrested by the Gestapo for giving sermons attacking the Nazi persecution of the Jews. What Hesse did not know was that his sermons were being monitored by the Gestapo. In June 1943 he was arrested and sent to the notorious Dachau concentration camp near Munich. He was killed by a lethal injection there on 24 November 1943. At just twenty-seven years of age; Helmut Hesse became the youngest martyr of the Confessing Church. Today’s Protestants ought to be proud of him – despite Luther’s anti-Semitic diatribes.Equally important and illuminating are the chapters “Hunting the Communists†and “Persecuting the Jewsâ€.Frank McDonough's work has been described as; 'modern history writing at its very best: Ground-breaking; fascinating; occasionally deeply revisionist'. I take the view: Since Frank McDonough is Britain’s leading post-revisionist historian he should have put forward this bold and challenging thesis: The godfathers of the Gestapo are William Cecil and Francis Walsingham; who in April 1576 had set up the Elizabethan police state; whose spies recorded everything. And torture was used more than in any other English reign. Thomas (“rackmasterâ€) Norton and Richard (“torturerâ€) Topcliffe figure prominently here.Finally I wholeheartedly agree with Matthew Feldman and Roger Moorhouse and with their respective appraisals of McDonough’s brilliant achievement: “A compelling and crisply written new history of the Third Reich's central instrument on domestic terror between 1933 and 1945. McDonough moves beyond the administrative history of the Gestapo to examine the key target groups not just political and religious opponents; but social outsiders and Jews He provides a nuanced account via Gestapo files and courtroom testimony. In setting a range of victims' life stories revealed in these neglected Gestapo case files against long standing historical views of either an all pervasive surveillance or total reliance on public denunciations; The Gestapo provides an original and welcome perspective on this often misunderstood symbol of Nazi repression and enforced conformity. Impressive; illuminated by real victim stories; this book is strongly recommended.†(…) “The Gestapo is as surprising as it is illuminating; and it sets a new standard for this vitally important subject.â€It is my firm belief that historians with a mission like Frank McDonough are our society’s conscience. They are custodians of our human experience in its misery and in its glory; in its encircling gloom and it its kindly light. The political history of all nations has hardly ever produced anything more malicious and evil than Hitler’s Gestapo and SS. But at the same time there is hardly anything greater and nobler than the opposition which existed in Germany.
