The Bomb: A Life

This book is easy to read and gives the reader a good undertanding of what it took to build the Atom Bomb, who were the main actors, who was responsible for key decisions, building the H- Bomb etc... I highly recommend.

Gerard J. DeGroot's "The Bomb: A Life" is one of the best single-volume histories I've read about the development of the atomic bomb and the effects the new weapon had on the world. In a conversational, highly readable style, DeGroot strikes a nearly perfect balance between describing the "nuts and bolts" of how nuclear weapons work and covering the political, military, moral and ethical issues associated with their development. Well-organized chapters focus on specific aspects of "the bomb" during the Cold War. The Manhattan Project, the Trinity test and the use of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" at Hiroshima and Nagasaki receive considerable attention, making up about the first third of the book. Development of the thermonuclear "Super," a weapon orders of magnitude more powerful than the original Trinity bomb, is covered in detail from both the political perspective ("SHOULD we make it?") and the technical perspective ("CAN we make it?"). DeGroot tells about American nuclear testing in the Pacific and in Nevada, and the harmful health effects the tests had on nearby inhabitants despite Government assurances that the resulting radiation and fallout were nothing to be concerned about. He covers in detail nuclear weapon development in the Soviet Union, and, in slightly less detail, the programs in Britain, France and China. Those who lived through the Cold War will (fondly?) reminisce as DeGroot describes "duck and cover" drills, "Bert the Turtle" and fallout shelters, as well as "pop culture" music and movie references to nuclear weapons, in a chapter entitled "How We Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." Purist history students may be put off by the fact that DeGroot tends to inject his own opinions into the story, either directly or subtly. For example, "Like the elaborate exercises in the Nevada desert, American civil defence was a carefully stage-managed performance designed to pull the wool over the people's eyes." He also has an endearing way of couching the most serious subjects in humorous terms. For example, American civil defense survival projections were over-optimistic because they assumed that people would be together in their homes when the attack came. DeGroot writes, "A really cooperative enemy would time missiles to coincide with when the meal was done, the dishes tidied away and the family gathered around the television watching `Leave It To Beaver.'" I found the irreverence in "The Bomb: A Life" very refreshing. It does not in any way detract from the quality and importance of this comprehensive but manageable history of the Cold War.

DeGroot's history of the Age of Megadeath is one of the best I've read. It's gracefully written, well-illustrated and perhaps uniquely in this field, often funny; he has a very good, dry, sense of humour. It combines technological history and politics very deftly. As a neat summary of the long history of the Bomb, this book will be worth reading in a few decades. It's the only book I've read, for example, that describes the terrifying Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' of 1961, which flattened everything in a 25km radius. Besides its explosive power, an astonishing aspect of this device is the fact that it only took Russian scientists 16 weeks to design and build, and that many of them regarded the task as boring and pointless. Even in the war-broken and poverty-stricken USSR, thermonuclear bombs had become 'ordinary'. By the end of the Cold War, at least half of the USSR, and large areas of North America, were contaminated by nuclear pollution. As one American expert put it, 'We nuked ouselves'.

The combination of subject matter and readable presentation held my attention for the 2 days I spent reading the entire work nonstop. For the record, I am an engineer whose reading habits (outside of techincal) are light. I enjoyed the focus on details and the brevity of personal comment, which was bascially pointing out the absurdity of specific decisions & actions, in case you hadn't already noticed. In terms of history, I enjoyed learning about the transition from WWII to the Cold War, with emphasis placed on answering the "why didn't we use the Bomb?" question with common sense while reviewing previously top-secret information as well as (then) popular culture. The primary strength of this work is presenting otherwise stand-alone major events into a continuous story. Frightening is how close the Nazis came to developing the Bomb. All the while, DeGroot drops juicy tidbits of trivia to keep the attention span refreshed (which otherwise have only a minor effect on the big picture). This book can (and will, for me) serve as a comprehensive launching point for further study into the history of the Bomb. A good amount of review and comment on current events is also included.

I've been looking for a concise yet informative history of nuclear weaponry for years. I've listened to both of Richard Rhodes' excellent books, but they end with the development of the bombs. This chronicles a broader history. I found it readable and fascinating. It's just what I've been waiting for. I'm not going to quibble over the difference between "hitting" a hospital or exploding 1600 feet directly above it--the effect is the same. This is written by a Briton, but he is definitely not a unilateral disarmament lefty. He makes no judgement about whether it was right or wrong to use the bomb on Japan. I suspect that he, like I do, believes that it was simply inevitable. If you want a concise, readable, and informative history of nuclear weapons, you will be pleased with this book.