Bomb, The: A Life - Softcover

DeGroot, GJ

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674022351 ISBN 13: 9780674022355

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2008

Synopsis

A Life

About this title

Review:

Did we ever learn to love the bomb? Perhaps not, this opinionated and lively history shows...A splendid distillation of nuclear history, and just the thing for students of the modern age.

Gerard DeGroot's history of the weapon that transformed the world after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 looks at its scientific development, the devastating consequences of its use and the strange ways it burrowed into popular imagination.

This fascinating account charts [the Bomb's] short but devastating rise from theoretical possibility to malevolent ubiquity. From the febrile atmosphere of the physics labs to the Cuban missile crisis and beyond, this portrait of man's most Promethean invention is consistently gripping.

This fascinating account charts İthe Bomb's¨ short but devastating rise from theoretical possibility to malevolent ubiquity. From the febrile atmosphere of the physics labs to the Cuban missile crisis and beyond, this portrait of man's most Promethean invention is consistently gripping.

This is a succinct, lucid and reliable survey which begins with Ernest Rutherford who, in 1910, postulated that atoms had nuclei, and concludes with the impact of the 9/11 attacks on theories of thermonuclear deterrence and pre-emption...This is a surprisingly evenhanded, fair, and judicious account which develops a number of significant themes..."The Bomb: A Life" is a beautifully written synthesis...It deserves to be widely read.

DeGroot makes full use of newly available material from Russia, and the gripping story of the invention and building of the bomb, spiced with wartime strategic manoeuvring, scientific intrigues and espionage, has never been better told.--George Walden"Sunday Telegraph" (08/01/2004)

DeGroot's study is profound and rich in detail. His extensive narrative is captivating.--Henning Hoff"The Independent" (08/31/2004)

Gerard DeGroot's superb 'biography' of mankind's most terrible weapons does something that has rarely, if ever, been attempted. Bringing together the scientific, political, cultural and historical threads, he looks at the Manhattan Project and its rivals in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; and he widens the net to take in the efforts of Britain, France and other members--official or not--of the nuclear club. Ranging from atomic physics to rock 'n' roll, the result is a book that is pacey, readable and enormously wide-ranging...This is a book that really makes you think, as well as being hugely entertaining. I have read many books about different aspects of this enormous subject, but none that brings the diverse pieces together so well, in such an absorbing and truly masterly way.--Andrew Crumey"Scotland on Sunday" (06/13/2004)

DeGroot's remorselessly even-handed study of his subject leaves little room for complacency. It is scant satisfaction to those of us of a certain age to learn that the Cuban Missile Crisis really was that bad. If Kennedy had listened to Curtis LeMay and his Pentagon colleagues, Cuba would have been the trigger for an all-out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union...Kennedy took other advice, Kruschev withdrew, and all we Bomb Age teenagers survived to buy another Beatles record. But it was close. And, as we realised by the end of this excellent book, it still is.--Roger Hutchinson"The Scotsman" (07/10/2004)

Gerard DeGroot has written a lively and thought-provoking history of the nuclear bomb. It is, inevitably, a dark and scary book, but it is not without moments of grisly comedy.--Harry Reid"Glasgow Herald" (06/12/2004)

From the Publisher:

A PAGE-TURNING BIOGRAPHY OF MANKIND’S MOST TERRIFYING CREATION, THIS DISTURBS, AMUSES, ENLIGHTENS AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, MAKES YOU THINK TWICE’ WORD

An extraordinary, compelling account of the life and times of the atom bomb, from one of the UK’s leading historians.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0674022351
• ISBN 13: 9780674022355
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432