There are few events that define generations. One of those is the development and use of the atomic bomb.

More than imbedding itself into popular culture, the nuclear bomb shaped the world in ways that those who developed and deployed it would never have guessed. It led to decades of paranoia amongst the major powers and even today shapes how we as people view other nations.

Author James Delgado has done a masterful job of weaving the tale of how the bomb came to be, how it was used and what its results were on the world. Starting at the very beginning of thinking on atomic theory with Democritus in 540BC, to the modern scientific research into radioactivity with the Curies in the late 1900s, it all leads up to the initial research into producing a weapon at the start of WWII. Thankfully, Adolf Hitler drove the more knowledgeable scientists out of his country in the late 1930s, many of whom eventually came to the United States and so were available to work on the most impressive and expensive project of the time; the Manhattan Project.

Yet even this massive and secret undertaking almost did not happen as first US President Franklin Roosevelt had to be convinced that it was worth while. Though he gave the go-ahead to start the project, it took the US entry into the war to really get things going. Finally put under Army control in mid-late 1942, the project went ahead with astonishing speed and a then-unprecedented outlay of funds. By July 1945, the first test bomb was successfully detonated in New Mexico and a few weeks later, was used on the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively bringing the war in the Pacific to its conclusion.

All of that is within these pages including an in depth look at the WWII missions, the post war testing at Bikini and the results of that testing. The development of the bomb by Great Britain and the Soviet Union as well as France, which led to the cold war and the development of mutual assured destruction. Also part of the book is how the atomic age affected popular culture and the lives of citizens.

It is a truly engrossing book that pulls the reader into the prose. It is a book I can most highly recommend to you and once you start to read it, you'll find out why.  

March 2010

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