The Making of the Atomic Bomb

What it's about

The full story of how the atomic bomb came to be, from the discovery around 1900 that atoms held unimaginable energy, through the physicists who raced to understand it, often fleeing Nazi Europe as they did, to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, the first test at Trinity, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Richard Rhodes tells it as human drama, through Einstein, Bohr, Fermi, Szilard, Oppenheimer and dozens more.

Why it's worth reading

It's widely considered one of the greatest works of narrative history ever written, winning the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the NBCC Award. It explains the science clearly and never loses sight of the moral weight of what these people made.

You'll love it if you liked

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Right Stuff or The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Good to know

At nearly 900 pages it's a commitment, and the early chapters go deep into physics. The final chapters on Hiroshima include harrowing survivor accounts.