Dark Sun
In this work of history, science and politics, Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, tells for the first time the secret story of how and why the hydrogen bomb was made; traces the path by which "the Bomb", the supreme artifact of twentieth-century science and technology, became the defining issue of the Cold War; and reveals how close the world came to nuclear destruction before the United States and the former Soviet Union learned the lesson of nuclear stalemate - a stalemate, Rhodes makes clear, that forced the superpowers to tenuous truce for more than four decades, in the end bankrupting and destroying the Communist state and foreclosing world-scale war. From the day in September 1941 when the first word of Anglo-American atomic-bomb research arrived in Moscow via Soviet espionage to the week of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when Curtis LeMay goaded President Kennedy to attack the USSR with everything in the US arsenal, this book is full of unexpected - and sometimes hair-raising - revelations based on previously undisclosed Soviet as well as US sources.
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36% recommend56% neutral8% critical
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What Hacker News says
- This book is an incredibly good read: "'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' is a history book written by the American journalist and historian Richard Rhodes, first published by Simon & Schuster in 1987. The book won multiple awards, including Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. The narrative covers people and events from early 20th century discoveries leading to the science of nuclear fission, through the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Possibly the best book that I have ever read. It deals with many of the issues raised in the comments here, and with politics, industrial development, economics, military capabilities, and the history of modern physics.
Rhodes also wrote "'Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb', which told the story of the atomic espionage during World War II, the debates over whether the hydrogen bomb ought to be produced, and the eventual creation of the bomb and its consequences for the arms race." Also impeccable
Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_Atomic_Bomb
- The biography that this is based on, "American Prometheus", is fantastic. A fast, smart read.
Oppenheimer obviously also appears in Richard Rhodes' utterly superb "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", though he only becomes a main character in the sequel, "Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb", which is also great.
Oppenheimer was a highly skilled physicist, but Rhodes attributes his ability to lead the Manhattan Project to his gifts as a "synthesizer" of ideas and knowledge from many people and disparate branches of science. In my opinion he really came into his own, though, after the bomb, when he started formulating the US' atomic energy strategy, essentially inserting himself -- a scientist, not a statesman -- into the political elite by sheer force of will and charisma. Rhodes tells of Oppenheimer completely dominating meetings in early efforts that resulted in the formation of the Atomic Energy Commission (which became the US Department of Energy), essentially writing national policy recommendations on his own.
Oppenheimer realized the dangers of nuclear proliferation and detente early on, and wanted the world to own atomic energy as a force for good. He wanted an international organization (what became the IAEA) to control atomic energy and not let the US and UK have a monopoly on it. Oppenheimer also recommended against developing the hydrogen bomb, which he thought would dangerously escalate the destructive power of nuclear arms. This opposition ultimately led to Oppeheimer's trial that cost him his security clearance.
But it was his extensive writings on what the future of atomic energy could be that I think set him apart in this years. He was prescient about nuclear arms race and tried to steer the US and the world towards peaceful use of atomic energy. If his policies had been implemented we may have been in a different place today.
- Superb book, perhaps the finest non-fiction book I've had the pleasure of reading. I love the way he is able to create a narrative that goes all the way back to H. G. Wells to find its roots.
Rhodes' follow-up, "Dark Sun: The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb", basically continues the story where TMAB left off. The narrative gets a bit more fractured and factual, focused on the question of how to safeguard nuclear weapons and what their political/military/diplomatic purpose is. But it does wrap up the J. Robert Oppenheimer story.
Once one has read these two, I strongly recommend "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" [2] by Bird and Sherwin. Also extremely well written.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Sun-Making-Hydrogen-Bomb/dp/0684...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/American-Prometheus-Triumph-Tragedy-O...
- That espionage was a major factor in the soviet bomb program seems uncontroversial. Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_atomic_bomb_project
Richard Rhodes is probably the definitive source for this history in The Making Of The Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun. Both excellent reads.
I don't say this to discount the abilities of the Soviet scientists working on the problem; it's an incredible achievement even with the extra "stolen" knowledge. But keep in mind that the US pursued four totally separate technologies for uranium separation and built massively expensive plants for each because they didn't know which was going to work out. The Soviets benefitted by avoiding a lot of very expensive and time-consuming dead ends.
- Yes, I was wondering the same. What were Edward Teller's secrets?
This reminds me to finally finish reading "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes.
I think "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" was one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read.
- The relevant Wikipedia page has some decent diagrams - from the original Ivy Mike Sausage style cylindrical secondaries through to very modern designs like the W88:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon
I can also recommend "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes for more details.
