The Making of the Atomic Bomb

The complete history of the development of the nuclear bomb—and with it, science, politics and the fate of the modern world.

The story of the atomic bomb is the story of human civilisation. The scientific discoveries of the late nineteenth century hinted at the promise of infinite energy. In the twentieth century, however, they collided with politics and the reality of war, bringing the world to the brink of catastrophe and the possibility of total self-destruction, which has never gone away. The Making of the Atomic Bomb tells this story in its entirety: from the discovery of the atom to the hell unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from European and Japanese laboratories to American war offices, from the greatest scientists of the twentieth century—Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Albert Fermi, Max Planck, John von Neumann, Robert Oppenheimer and many others—through spies and top politicians to ordinary soldiers and workers, from academic discussions and science fiction novels to the greatest battles of the Second World War. It is also a story that influenced the rest of the twentieth century. And it casts its shadow over the present day.

Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and other awards

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The best, most comprehensive, and deepest account of scientific research in the first half of the twentieth century I have ever read—and certainly the most enjoyable.
— Isaac Asimov

The book is as gripping as a novel. I learned a lot from it that I didn't know myself. Rhodes has done his job conscientiously and intelligently.
— Emilio Segrè, one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project and winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics