The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Jack Dikian

June 2011

I first read The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes in 1997, ten years after its first publication. Reading the account of the development of the most destructive war weapon ever to be created in 1997, I was already aware that Rhodes had received the 1987 National Book Award, the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and the 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction. So at the time, I knew I was about to take an 800-page journey through the science, the scientists, the historical and political need for such a weapon, and an insight into the thoughts, values and difficult moral and ethical dilemmas highly recognized scientists had to face should their work was successful.

Of course we know from history the first test atomic bomb, called Trinity, was exploded in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. On August 6, an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. 3 days later, another atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. On August 14, 1945, Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender to the Allies, thus ending World War II.

Reading this book again recently, I thoroughly enjoyed Rhodes’ ability to capture the twists and turns of an era in our not-so-distant past that propelled government, science and industry to muster the enormous resources of a nation in order to weaponise the theoretical possibilities of nuclear reactions.

For me, one of the standouts of this book is Rhodes’ detailed account of the countless scientists whose work eventually culminated in the making of the first atomic bomb. Rhodes provides us with the lives and work of individual scientists and weaves a thread through their contributions to convert what was initially pure scientific research into the creation of a the atom bomb.

At times, the science gets a little hairy but the reader is more than rewarded by its rich drama, suspense and surprise. For example, there was even a third ''gadget'' being readied to be dropped on Japan, even as Hiroshima and Nagasaki smoldered.

The book's bibliography is some 600 entries long, and Rhodes has fleshed out this archive by interviewing the living principals and by traveling to the sites and shrines of the atomic era.