Dark Sun. The making of the hydrogen bomb, Richard Rhodes (ISBN 9780684824147, Simon & Schuster)

After having read ‘The making of the atomic bomb’ by Richard Rhodes I also had to read this book. It didn’t win the Pulitzer prize although it did make the short list for it. Compared to the award winning ‘The making of the atomic bomb’ I have to agree this book is not as excellent although it is still a very good book. Compared to ‘The making of the atomic bomb’ this book lacks a bit of the dramatic story arc and suspense that came with the race against the nazi’s to build the atomic bomb. Also, this book has basically 2 intertwined story lines : one following the espionage activities by communists in the West trying to obtain details about the bomb atomic bomb design, the second one describing the history of the hydrogen bomb development in the US and the Soviet Union. The espionage story starts shortly before the beginning of the Manhattan Project and contains much I had no clue about. Linked to the espionage the book also details the work done by Soviet scientists to build their first atomic bomb, something about which I had read not much before. Also, the technical development and the difficulties that had to be overcome were new to me. The book discusses in detail the nuclear arms race that ensued after world war 2, leading to bigger and bigger bombs and ever more bombs with which both sides don’t know what to do. From early on the combined nuclear firepower of the US and the USSR became sufficient to destroy both many times over and instead of making the world more secure this excess of bombs only made it less secure. There was no real rationale for the arms race but for 40 years arguments were always be found to continue it. In isolation the arguments may have made sense but looking at reality they were nonsensical. To quote Winston Churchill : ‘If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce’. Reading a book like this one can only be relieved that we have been able to escape nuclear Armageddon until now.