The Making of the Atomic Bomb : 25th Anniversary Edition, Richard Rhodes (ISBN 978-1451677614, Simon & Schuster)

Last year ‘revolved’ about the history of the atomic bomb with the Oppenheimer movie being released. To brush up on my Oppenheimer I read 2 biographies, one by Abraham Pais and the other one the Pulitzer Prize winning American Prometheus. And then I decided to finally read book by Richard Rhodes about the making of the atomic bomb which also won a Pulitzer Prize. This book is much more than a history of the Manhattan project, it is a history of science around the beginning of the twentieth century, especially the discovery of nuclear physics interwoven with a bit of history of modern warfare. How warfare slowly evolved from armies of noblemen fighting partly ceremonial duels to mass murder of civilians. That part of the book helps explain how military and political leaders came to see the atomic bomb as an acceptable weapon to use. The scientific history relates how the atom was discovered and fission stumbled upon by Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner. After which everyone quickly realised the theoretical possibility of turning fission into an explosive of unprecedented power. The part on the Manhattan project describes the enormous technological effort that went into making the bomb and how the threat of nazi Germany making the atomic bomb first was crucial to the success of the Manhattan project. Reading the book I sometimes wondered if the bomb would have been built without the nazi threat. Probably not in 1945 but sooner or later someone would have put the effort into it simply because the atomic bomb is a weapon like no other weapon before it. It is so horrific that it brought us some sort of peace. Peace because war means total destruction. Peace because a war with atomic bombs has no winners, only losers. This much was clear even before the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima to people like Niels Bohr and Robert Oppenheimer. On paper the threat of mutual destruction works and looking back at the Cold War it seems to have worked in practice as well. Unfortunately it seems to have worked only because we were lucky until now and looking at modern ‘leaders’ in Russia and elsewhere I don’t have a lot of faith that there will not be some brain dead idiot coming to power that believes he can win a nuclear war. This is a brilliantly written book that reads faster than other books half the size. And it is once again very relevant unfortunately. It should be mandatory reading in high school.