The Bomb: A Life - Tapa blanda

DeGroot makes full use of newly available material from Russia, and the gripping story of the invention and building of the bomb, spiced with wartime strategic manoeuvring, scientific intrigues and espionage, has never been better told.--George Walden"Sunday Telegraph" (08/01/2004)

A skillfully condensed narrative of the nuclear era, fascinating in the selection of details and riveting in its revelations of how possessing nuclear weapons changed those involved, and changed America.--William S. Kowinski"San Francisco Chronicle" (07/31/2005)

This very balanced history of nuclear weaponry, a straightforward chronology, should be required reading at every college and university, to promote some national introspection.--Roger Chapman "Material Culture "

I have been waiting most of my professional teaching life for a book like The Bomb: A Life. It is a masterpiece.--Martin J. Sherwin, author of A World Destroyed

The Bomb chronicles nuclear weapons from their conception in the 1930s through the end of the century, focusing mainly on the decisions made from 1940 to 1962 to develop and use devices of unimaginable destruction and become ironically reliant on them for maintaining peace. Was it the Soviets or the Americans who pushed the crazy escalation in megatons and warheads? The answer isn't so simple as I once thought. I count this among the best history books I've read. DeGroot's effort clarifies a bewildering and, in retrospect, insane time.--David Schoonmaker "American Scientist "

Gerard DeGroot...has produced a timely account of mankind's most awful invention, wrly wrapped as a biography...This is a clever cocktail of reportage, analysis and anecdote, from the physics of the bomb's conception to the B-movies it inspired (notably Night of the Lepus, in which the world is threatened by giant mutant rabbits.) There are also some well-aimed blows at the late Ronald Reagan, who despite hagiographical obituaries tinkered with the superpower balance with a dangerous whimsy.-- (08/14/2004)

DeGroot's study is profound and rich in detail. His extensive narrative is captivating.-- (08/31/2004)

Thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and irradiated by a wry sense of humour and a (mostly) well-restrained anger, [DeGroot's] biography of the bomb is absolutely gripping. It cannot fail to be given that every chapter in the story makes for powerful narrative, and is rich in exotic characters: Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Harry S. Truman, Stalin, Beria, John F. Kennedy, and more...Gerard DeGroot has marshaled the facts about the bomb's history from early atomic science onwards--concentrating mainly on the period up to the 1960s--with great skill and elegance. This is a book crammed with information, but so beautifully arranged that one scarcely notices what a complete education it purveys. It ends with a very just evaluation of what the existence of the bomb says about the flawed nature of human beings: their mutual distrust, their power hunger, their propensity to be impressed by anything big...It is...inevitable that the number of weapons, and their availability, will result in their use again. Our sensibilities on this score have gone to sleep: this outstanding book ought to wake them up again with a very loud bang.-- (06/01/2004)

Gerard DeGroot's superb 'biography' of mankind's most terrible weapons does something that has rarely, if ever, been attempted. Bringing together the scientific, political, cultural and historical threads, he looks at the Manhattan Project and its rivals in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; and he widens the net to take in the efforts of Britain, France and other members--official or not--of the nuclear club. Ranging from atomic physics to rock 'n' roll, the result is a book that is pacey, readable and enormously wide-ranging...This is a book that really makes you think, as well as being hugely entertaining. I have read many books about different aspects of this enormous subject, but none that brings the diverse pieces together so well, in such an absorbing and truly masterly way.-- (06/13/2004)

Gerard DeGroot has written a lively and thought-provoking history of the nuclear bomb. It is, inevitably, a dark and scary book, but it is not without moments of grisly comedy.-- (06/12/2004)