Bookverdict.com

So often, the best nonfiction is described as "reading like fiction"—meaning it makes a subject come alive in a way that keeps a reader eagerly turning the pages. Here we are treated to not one but three such stories, each more gripping than the last. The first focuses on the development, another on the dissemination, and the third on the destruction of nuclear ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

While comprehensive in his synthesis of the political, historical, and scientific aspects of the creation of the first nuclear weapon, Sheinkin focuses his account with an extremely alluring angle: the spies. The book opens in 1950 with the confession of Harry Gold -- but to what? And thus we flash back to Robert Oppenheimer in the dark 1930s, as he and readers are handed another question by the author: “But how was a theoretical physicist supposed to save the world?” Oppenheimer’s realizatio...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

While comprehensive in its synthesis of the political, historical, and scientific aspects of the creation of the first nuclear weapon, this ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Incisive and exciting, Steve Sheinkin’s stellar history has the pacing of a thriller. A riveting prologue, set in 1950, plunges readers into the story as FBI agents corner Harry Gold, a spy for the Soviets and a central figure in the book. Individuals, including Norwegian resistance fighters, scientists, pilots, survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima, and world leaders are fleshed out with vivid descriptions. For example, Robert Oppenheimer, a skinny, chain-smoking professor who later became technical director of the Manhattan Project, is introduced with a memorable anecdote about how he once left a date in his car at the Golden Gate Bridge to take a walk and end...Log In or Sign Up to Read More